Say It Ain't So
by Lady Fingers20
Summary: Wanda is back, but will things ever really be the same as they were before? Just when things seem to be back to normal again, something else comes in to stir up the peace. Can everyone overcome this or will it all crumble? Sequel to Broken and Bleeding.
1. Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

**Hey there! So it's been about a month since Broken and Bleeding ended and I wanted to get this chapter out sooner, but school has once again gotten in the way. But this is my last week of classes and then three exams and I'm done. So there will be regular updates!**

**I just wanted to say a huge thank you to those who reviewed for that last chapter! Thanks to piccolover22, RawSugarX23, PachO'shea, O'Shea Fan, brokenfromthepast, aleex9530, stefffie, WhiteCamellia, anoek013, HockeeChica, Newfoundland Novelist, hanaharoo, BleedingMusic, fiasco-freak, sapphirenight12 and emotionalpoemgirl! **

**Disclaimer: I do not own The Host or any of its characters; they belong to the lovely Stephenie Meyer. I do however, own the plot.**

**Wanda POV**

***Five Months Later***

Things had sort of slowly gone back to what was considered 'normal' around the caves. Jeb and Jared had made Andy and Brandt go out on a small raid and we had all waited with baited breath until the van pulled up with the supplies and _both_ of them inside of it. When Jared had initially mentioned just a small raid, I had wanted to go out and I could tell that Mel had wanted to as well, but Ian had put a stop to any of it before it had even started. Ian had brought it up again with me when we were alone one night and had put up such an argument that I had no choice but to agree with him. Jared had evidently done the same thing with Mel, as she had simply rolled her eyes when I had seen her the next morning.

I was developing a bit of 'cabin fever' I realized, once I thought of the term that I was looking for, remembering it from something that Melanie had told me back before when we were one. I was essentially stuck doing the same things over and over and we weren't going out of the caves like we normally did every few months. I was essentially stir crazy.

Granted, I was back to doing more of the regular work around the caves, but I also noticed that certain people shied away from me again. It was a little frustrating, especially since I had gained most everybody's respect before everything happened and now I was basically back at square one. The first time that I really noticed it was when I said something to Trudy and she had ignored me completely, walking out of the kitchens. The same thing happened with Geoffrey and a few others. Since then I had tried not to talk to a whole lot of people, preferring to stay silent unless I was directly talked to first.

In all the time that had passed, nothing more had been said about the weird display in our room late at night between them, and the original incident had never been explained to me. Granted, the funny behaviour between the brothers, Jared and Melanie lasted only about a week before they were back to normal; as normal as they could have been, and nothing had out of the ordinary had transpired since then. I had long since made up my mind that if they wanted to tell me they would have back when it seemed to have mattered the most; sure I was curious, but I knew that sometimes it was better not to be curious about some things. It just bothered me that they were hiding something that was probably important. Ian had been all for not keeping secrets before, but since my arrival he had been a little bit.

I was in the middle of doing some laundry by myself down in the bathing room one evening with all of the streams when I heard people shouting out for me. I quickly rose to my feet to prepare for whatever was coming my way. I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw that it was just Mel running like crazy down the hall.

"Wanda!" she shouted one last time and it echoed a tiny bit in that room. "There you are!"

Melanie marched right over to me and yanked my hand pulling me away and down the hall with her.

"What's wrong?" I immediately asked as she started to jog and I sped up to keep in step with her. "What's going on? Where's Ian?"

"Nothing is wrong and nothing is going on," she answered as we spilled into the main plaza and she continued to lead me along the wall in there. I looked at the crops and saw that the cabbage was coming up nicely; Jeb would be pleased.

"Ian..." I started to say but she interrupted me.

"Is fine I guess. I don't know where he is," she said, leading me down the hallway that led to the main entrance of the caves.

"Mel, where are we going?" I asked as we started to slow once we got nearer to the opening. We rounded a corner and I saw Sunny sitting there by herself.

"We're making a break for it," Melanie replied and I rolled my eyes. "Jared's around I guess, I don't know, Jamie fell asleep, Kyle's somewhere and I haven't seen Ian in awhile."

"Why exactly do we need to run away from here?" I asked, growing a little panicky at the thought of just abandoning Ian without saying goodbye. It puzzled me further as to why Mel and Sunny were apparently so eager to do just that.

"Calm down," Melanie said, looking out the entrance way. "We're just going on a small raid that nobody knows about it. We'll be back here in like four hours, tops."

She turned around to look back at us with a wild grin on her face but it instantly faded when she looked over at me. Instead, Mel walked right over to me and wrapped me up in a hug.

"I'm sorry. Did you honestly think that I was going to make us leave here forever?" she asked quietly and I shook my head.

"Well, I wouldn't imagine that you would, but to be honest it was the first thing that went through my mind," I replied, shaking my head at myself.

"I'm sorry," she apologized stepping back. "I guess I should have explained it to you like I did for Sunny."

"It's okay!" I smiled at her and Sunny.

"It took a lot of persuading on her part to get me to come out with her though," Sunny said. "I don't think that I'm exactly ready to leave the caves again just yet, but I don't think I have a choice."

"No, you don't," Mel answered, taking both of our hands and leading us to the doorway. "It's like dark out, so we can just run straight to the Jeep. I'll drive."

With that, she pushed us from behind and we all ran towards the Jeep. I was the first one there surprisingly and I leaped jumped up onto the back tire to climb into it and fell into the back bed of it. Jared had decided to take the back seats out to allow for more room to put stuff in, but it seriously cramped our quarters if there were more than two people inside of it. Sunny opened up the passenger door and leaned across the seat to look at me.

"Do you want the front seat?" I shook my head. "Are you sure? It doesn't look to comfortable back there?"

"Sunny, it's okay. I'm fine," I said, smiling at her, but she still looked a little sceptical.

In the meantime, Mel had hopped into the driver's seat and adjusted it, putting the key in the ignition and the Jeep roared to life. I remembered to brace myself for the throwback that was sure to happen when she stepped on the gas pedal, but it wasn't soon enough and I crashed to the Jeep floor. Instantly, Sunny's head was poking through the seats so that she could look at me.

"Are you okay?"

"Yep!" I replied, scraping myself up and crawling forwards so that I was tucked in between their seats.

"So do you was to explain to my why you basically kidnapped me?" I asked and Melanie only tipped her head back and laughed.

"Nice wording," she replied, still giggling to herself.

"We're going out to get her a wedding dress," Sunny finally answered me and I nodded.

"At night time?" I asked, frowning at that logic.

"You're forgetting that it's winter time here and that it's only like 5:00 at night," Mel replied. Evidently she'd gotten over her little giggle fit.

"Oh," I replied, looking up at the ink black sky over our heads.

"She says that she needed you here for moral support and me because I'm around her size," Sunny elaborated and I smiled.

"So it's up to you, Wanda," Mel said, turning to look at me. "Get the tarp."

I hadn't even realized that we'd made it all that way, but I guessed that we had. I turned around and walked to the back of the Jeep and began pulling it all into the back bed of it. Eventually I got it all in and then I jumped out to unhook it from the back of the vehicle, climbing over the side again to get back inside. My arms got a little nicked from the brush that she had parked under in the process, but they didn't bother me.

"You know me better than any other girl in those caves, no offense Sunny, and since I can't exactly go in there and pick out the dress that I like you're going to have to do it for me. With Sunny modelling, of course," Melanie explained, pulling out onto the highway and I nodded.

"How will I know if it's the right one," I asked, looking around me for the blanket to cover myself up with for when we got into town. Or cover Melanie with, really. She should have been under it already, but I figured that we could stop before we got there or something and switch it up.

"Um, you were the one who lived inside of my head for all those months, were you not?" I nodded to her question even though I was pretty sure that it didn't need an answer of any kind. "Then you should remember what my vision of a perfect wedding dress looked like."

"Okay, but I still feel like I'm missing a part of this plan," I said, shaking my head at her. "Where are you supposed to be while Sunny and I are in the store? And are you completely sure that this is a safe idea? What if people are looking for me, or my body, or whatever."

"You said it yourself before that there are no more 'wanted' people anymore, so why should it be a problem for you?" Mel asked and I could see the distant lights of the closest little city near the horizon ahead of us.

"But they were like following us before and stuff, even though I said that there weren't, so that leads me to believe that they still might be looking for me or something," I told them and Sunny patted my arm.

"They won't be looking for you anymore and if they are it will be in all of the wrong places," she said gently but I still wasn't really convinced. "Where was the place that your... Pet... liked to go the most?"

"Florida," I answered her immediately, images of the place floating around in Pet's memories and I kind of liked the place, even though I'd never been there.

"And Cloud Spinner will know that, so that's where they will be searching the most," Sunny finished, giving me a reassuring smile.

"When did our roles get so reversed?" I asked and she laughed.

"Oh no, don't you get me wrong. I'm like having an anxiety attack right now about how we're going to pull this off while Mel's hiding out under a tarp and some blankets in the Jeep."

"Are you crazy?" I practically shrieked at Melanie and she glared at me. "That's practically a death sentence!"

"So is driving, drinking alcohol, dehydration, or anything else like that," she responded. "And beside, if I didn't drag the two of you out into the real world to do this, it never would have gotten done. I know that I said I'd never wanted the big white wedding, but what if this is my only chance?"

Her words hung in the air as the wind swirled around us from Sunny's open window, making our hair fan out in every direction. I desperately tried to tuck it behind my ears while I thought about what she had said, but it was no use.

"I still don't feel comfortable with you just hiding out in the back like that. I mean, it's relatively open to the world and stuff..."

"Wanda, I'll be fine," Melanie said with finality as she pulled off to the side of the road. "Now. You see those lights over there?"

She pointed to the city's lights that had gotten much brighter in the time that I had been simply talking to them. They were much closer and for once in my life I was very nervous about what would happen to us once we got there.

"We're going to switch now, and I want you to drive into the city. I'll tell you where to go, Wanda so that we don't get lost or anything. I know the relative area of the closest bridal shop to the outskirts of the city so that we can make a quick exit if need be."

She shoved me aside and climbed through the seats and I jumped through the middle to settle myself into the driver's seat. As I looked out the windshield I shook my head.

"Here Sunny, take my ring," she instructed, handing the piece of jewellery to Sunny who tentatively held it in her open palm.

"Are you sure?" Sunny breathed, looking between the ring and Melanie several times.

"Absolutely. You won't lose it, and it will make the souls suspicious if you're going in there to buy a wedding dress if you're not even engaged with a ring on. I'm assuming that they would do things more in a traditional way where you need a ring to be engaged," she explained and Sunny nodded, slipping it onto the third finger of her left hand.

"I still don't know about this Mel," I said and she hit my arm.

"Just drive. We can't sit out here all night. And if you turn this car around, I'll be so disappointed in you, Wanda."

"I can't drive, Mel. I can't do this. I just think that it's too risky. I can't leave you alone in the car while we go into some store for more than an hour, I'd bet," I said, trying to reason with her, but she just rolled her eyes.

"I will be fine. You can park right in front of the stupid store if you want so that you can keep an eye on me, I don't care. Just drive."

I didn`t want to argue with her because I knew that it was more of a violent tendency and I always tried my best to stay away from that, even if it didn`t always work. Still, I opened my mouth to say something more to her and she cut me off before a sound could sneak past my lips.

"I thought that you liked to make people happy, Wanda," she said, looking right at me and I felt like I was caught by her for doing something bad just by her expression and tone of voice. "I thought that you did things like this to help other people and that you were good like that. Now the one time that I'm asking you to do something explicitly for me and not for the good of everyone else, something that will truly make me happy, and something that a sister would do, you can't even do it? How is that fair? After all that I have helped you through and do in your life, this one little thing is too much? It's because of me that you're back here, you know. It's because of me that you even came here in the first place, and let me remind you that it is because of me that you found Ian."

Her words hung in the air and I felt a tear fall down my cheek and that was when I realized that I had been crying throughout her little speech; she was right, of course she was and I was being selfish by not wanting to do this for her. The only reason I didn't want to was for her own safety though. Without another word, I turned around in my seat and put the seatbelt on, throwing the car into drive and merging back onto the road. No words were spoken between any of us for the longest time, and our silence was only broken when Melanie began whispering directions at me.

Eventually we pulled up to the store and I made sure to park right in front of the big display window that let anyone outside see every part of the store inside. I looked over at Sunny and nodded and unclicked my seatbelt.

"Wait," Melanie said, grabbing a hold of my arm and I looked back at her. "I'm sorry Wanda. I feel horrible and I didn't intend to make you feel bad about it or anything. It's just...well, you know that I was always one of those girls who has dreamed about what her perfect wedding will look like since she was like five years old. I just didn't want to have to give up that dream just because of our situation and all. I'm sorry."

"It's okay, Mel," I responded, giving her a little smile. "But you know, you could have given me that speech instead of guilting me into this."

"Sorry about that. I was caught up in the moment," she apologized again and I nodded.

"Now get under there so that we can get this over with and go back to the caves as fast as possible," I instructed her, pushing on the top of Mel's hand to shove her backwards.

Melanie took the hint and pulled the tarp and blanket over top of her and I made sure that it didn't look too fake; or that it was obvious that we were hiding something if someone were to look in. Once it looked okay I nodded over at Sunny again and we hopped out of the Jeep. I made sure to lock it and pressed the button once so that it made a small beeping noise.

"Well, that was... intense," Sunny commented as she walked around the front of the Jeep.

"I know. But she was right," I said, looking up at the display of the wedding dress in the window and smiled a little. "You ready to power shop to find her dress?"

"I suppose. Except you'll be the one who actually knows what it looks like; I'll just be the one randomly trying on dresses until we actually find it. You had better help me out and we'll be done quickly. Trust me, I don't like the idea of her being in there any more than you do," Sunny said, linking her arm through mine and we walked right into the store.

Right away, a soul kindly greeted us and asked if we were her 5:10 appointment. I glanced over at Sunny, who nodded her head a little bit.

"All right, Ocean's Song, my name is Falling Softly, but you can call me Susan. That was my host's name and it's a little more easy to say that my real name," she explained leading Sunny and I further into the store and over to a little table.

"Who have you brought with you today?" she asked kindly, gesturing for us to sit down across from her while she dug out a piece of paper and a pen.

"This is my best friend Gentle Breeze," Sunny introduced us and I nodded at the girl.

"Nice to meet you," I said, shaking the woman's outstretched hand.

"And you. So is she the only one going to be with you today, Ocean's Song? Is your mother going to be joining us?"

"Um, no. I haven't located my host's mother just yet. She liked to travel a lot and with all the wedding plans I haven't had a lot of time to go out looking for her. Hopefully she will be home by the wedding date; I know that she always returns around Christmastime," Sunny lied beautifully and I couldn't help but to gape at her a little bit. I didn't know how she could be so confident, but then I noticed her leg shaking like crazy and she was wringing her fingers together.

"Well I hope that she will be there in time for your wedding. I must say though, it is a bit unusual that a bride will come in looking for a dress without her mother," she commented and my heart stopped beating for a moment; was she on to us?

"Well, my host's life was a bit unconventional before I got here. I have been working to get things back on tracks and I've made a _lot_ or progress, but this is just kind of the last piece of her life that I'm trying to put back together," Sunny informed her and she nodded her head.

"I see. Well, what sort of a dress are you looking for?" Susan asked and Sunny bit her lip while looking at me for help. I should have told her what we were looking for beforehand because she was about to choke right then.

"Well, she was sort of leaning towards the ball gown dresses, right Ocean's Song?" I asked, nodding my head at Sunny.

"Yes. I've tried some on in other stores, but I just couldn't find the one that I want. I do know that I love the ball gowns though. But not too poofy or anything," she giggled, seeming comfortable even though we were basically making it all up.

"I see. And do you like beading on the dress?" Susan asked her and Sunny nodded.

"Yes, but not too much. I like things simpler, if that is possible at all."

"So since your wedding is going to be in the winter time, would you be looking for something with a longer sleeve?"

"No, no I really like the strapless gowns. I don't think that it gets too cold down here, does it?" Sunny asked. "My fiancé and I just moved down here in July, so I really have no idea. I'm used to the frigid winters up north."

"No, you're right," Susan said with a smile, standing up. "It doesn't get that cold down here. I have a few things in mind so I'll just go and pick them out for you. You can wait here and I'll get a dressing room ready for you as well."

"Thank you so much!" Sunny called out to her as she left the table and began to look through the racks.

"How did I do?" Sunny whispered and I smiled at her.

"Wonderfully," I responded and she seemed to breathe a sigh of relief.

"Was there beading on that dress she was thinking of?"

"A little bit. Simple, just like you said. But it was definitely more of a simplistic ball gown and kind of wrapped a little, if that makes sense. She wants it to float out from around her body and it's like pinned up at the train and yeah. It's hard to explain," I said, shrugging.

"No, that's fine. I'll just be the model anyways, you're the one calling the shots here," she giggled and I nodded in agreement.

"Ocean's Song? I'm ready for you to come on back here!" Susan called out to her and Sunny gave me a look.

"Wish me luck."

"Good luck!" I called out cheerfully to her retreating back and sat back into the chair a little bit more. I chanced a glance out the window to the Jeep, but it was too dark to see much at all.

I leaned back and let my thoughts drift to Ian. I wondered if he had noticed that I was missing yet; he probably did as he was always checking up on me at various points throughout the day. He would mostly likely freak out and call out a search party or something. I wished that Mel had given me enough time to write a note to him. Even though he'd still be upset with me for going out of the caves like that, he would at least know that I was safe and that I hadn't been taken away or anything. Plus, once Jared and Kyle found out they were more liable to kill someone over this as well.

"Are you ready, Gentle Breeze? We've got her in the first dress!" Susan called out to me and I stood up, facing the direction that the pair of them had disappeared in.

"I'm ready!" I said cheerfully, excited to see what they had chosen as the first dress.

As Sunny came walking down the hallway though, I felt like throwing up in my mouth a little bit. I shook my head very infinitesimally so that Susan wouldn't see, and did it when she was fluffing up the skirt; not that it needed to be done, the thing had a mind of its own. Sunny raised her eyebrows and nodded her head, as if she was saying "I know".

The dress had a nice top to it, kind of a dipped neckline and then it was wrapped at Sunny's waist with a gigantic purple ribbon that was tied into a bow. As Susan was babbling about the dress, calling it a "sweetheart neckline" I realized that it was almost the same as the one that I had pictured in my mind from Mel's memories. I would have to let Sunny know that.

Susan then started pretty much gushing about the skirt and the train on the dress as she had Sunny step up onto the little pedestal and look in the mirror. It honestly took everything out of me not to laugh at the dress that Sunny had on. She caught my eye in the mirror and I nearly dissolved in laughter. I ended up nearly biting straight through my bottom lip to hold it in and she just winked at me.

The skirt of the dress was made entirely out of tulle, from what Susan had been describing and there had to have been like 20 zillion layers of it on as it was nearly standing out on its own. It looked like an upside down flower that was in the middle of opening or something. Granted, it floated pretty nicely when she walked, but it also bounced all over and it was just too much.

"Gentle Breeze, what do you think of the dress?" Susan asked me and I sobered up as much as I could.

"Well, to be honest I think that it's a little too much for what she had planned, wouldn't you say?" Sunny nodded in agreement and I shrugged. "It's just not exactly what I pictured her in."

"Totally understandable, it is a bit... large," Susan said, nodding her head. "Well, shall we go try on dress number two?"

She lead Sunny back to the dressing room while I wandered around, looking at the dresses that were hanging on the racks. Dresses two, three, and four were really no better and when Sunny came out in dress number five that was pretty much completely covered in beading, I decided to take matters into my own hands.

"We're just wasting time here," I whispered to her as I pretended to fix the bodice of the dress she had on. "I'm going to look around for a minute. Help me. Distract her by saying that you liked something you saw over there," I instructed her, nodding over my head.

"Absolutely," Sunny agreed, calling Susan over and together they walked to the racks. I began searching through them and smiled when I saw one that might have been a possibility. I wanted to see how it fit on Sunny first.

The two of us had agreed that we were going to take the dress with us when we left, as we were not going back for extra fittings, and Sunny had mentioned it to Susan, who had completely agreed with her. I grabbed the dress off of the rack and made my way over to where they were standing.

"How about this one?" I asked, holding it up for them to see and I heard Sunny gasp.

"It's beautiful," she gushed, and I knew that she wasn't lying. "I've found one to try on too, so we'll do them both."

"You know, sometimes brides find that it helps to have their friends try one on with them so that they don't feel so much like they are on display. Do you think that would help, Ocean's Song?" Susan asked while taking the dress from me and Sunny nodded.

"I do think that it would be very helpful," she said with a devious smile. "Something strapless with an A-Line skirt."

I started shaking my head at her, not wanting to leave the area so that we could keep an eye on the Jeep, but in the blink of an eye I was ushered into the dressing room beside Sunny with the promise that Susan had the perfect one in mind. I didn't want to play dress up so much, but I would just to keep up the act. A few minutes later, Susan came in and helped me into some dress and I found that I liked the way that it fit on me. She babbled away the whole time, but didn't really need me to respond to her; apparently she like to talk to herself.

By the time that I stepped out of the room I was exhausted; I had no idea how Sunny had tried on five dresses with her in the room. I walked around to where I knew Sunny would be standing by the pedestal holding up the skirt a little bit and when I rounded the corner I heard several gasps. I looked up to see Sunny frozen up on the pedestal, but then my eyes quickly looked over to some other bride with her mother and a consultant sitting at the same table we were at before. All of them were looking at me.

"What?" I asked, feeling very self-conscious and I wanted to run back inside the dressing room that I had just left.

"That dress is amazing," Sunny finally said and I frowned, walking over to her side to look into the mirror.

"No, wait. Stand up here before you look," she said, quickly stepping down and I saw the dress that she had on for the first time.

It was the one I had chosen and I knew that it was the right one. I nodded at her quickly and she nodded back; we were leaving with that dress that she had on her body for Mel. It was the one that she had always dreamed of, I was sure of.

"Step up there all ready!" Sunny teased, pushing me towards the pedestal and I sighed very theatrically as I lifted the front of the dress up and stepped up, letting it fall down into place as I looked into the mirror.

"Woah," I breathed, taking in my reflection.

The dress was very fitted on top and it floated away from my body perfectly, forming that "A" frame that I guess Sunny had wanted to see on me. There was a little bit of beading on it, but not to take away from the overall look of the dress. I loved it. Unfortunately, I was probably never going to have a place to wear it, given that things with Ian just weren't the same as they were before. I had thoughts of marriage to him before everything happened, but then I wasn't so sure any more.

"That dress looks gorgeous on you," Sunny said and Susan was fluttering around once again, gushing over it and trying to get me to put a veil on.

"It looks good, but I just don't have anywhere to wear it. I'm not getting married any time soon," I said, stepping down. "It was probably a bad idea that I even tried it on in the first place."

"It was not!" Sunny said, smiling like a loon. "You have to get it."

"No, I'm not getting it," I told her, shaking my head. "I have nowhere to keep it and we're nowhere near ready for marriage. It was a bad idea to try this on."

"It so was not," she said, shaking her head.

"Anyways, I think that we've found your dress," I said to her, smiling and shimmying my shoulders a little bit in excitement.

"I completely agree. Why don't you slip out of that dress while I get the veil and stuff. I think I know which one that I'd like," she instructed me and I nodded.

I had Susan unzip me before I stepped into the dressing room and I held up the sides of the dress to look at myself in the mirror again. Supposedly it was said that you knew the moment that you put a dress on that you knew it was _the_ dress and I was having one of those moments. I didn't want to take it off. I swirled the skirt around and smiled at how it moved, loving it. Still, the rational side of me took over and I reminded myself that it couldn't happen no matter how much I would like it to. With that in mind, I slipped the dress off and changed into my regular clothes, looking at it hanging on the hanger in front of me. With a heavy heart and a sad smile at it, I left the room and walked into the main reception area.

Sunny was already changed and at the check-out desk, garment bag in hand while Susan was swiping the box of shoes through the inventory checker.

"Ready to go?" she asked, smiling at me and I nodded, trying to seem enthusiastic.

"Yes I am. Happy with your purchase?" I asked, winking at Sunny and she giggled.

"Absolutely."

We said our goodbyes to Susan and left the store with me carrying the box of shoes and another box that held the veil and a necklace that Sunny had chosen as well.

"Well, that went over well," I commented once the door was shut and we were on our way over to the Jeep. I hadn't noticed that some bright overhead lights had been turned on in the parking lot since we had been in there and I hoped that no one had discovered Mel while we had been distracted.

"It sure did. Though I'm still questioning her first few choices," Sunny said, opening up the back door and sliding the dress bag into the back on top of another pile of blankets.

"I know, seriously? That first one was _hideous_!" I said, laughing at Susan. "Oh well."

"But really. We specifically said simple and she gave us that."

"Sometimes people just might not get it?" I said, shrugging and noticed that the tarp moved a bit and I heard Mel sneeze underneath it. I inadvertently let out a sigh of relief at that point and closed my side of the door after I threw the boxes in as well.

"But that one that you had on was gorgeous!" Sunny called out to me as she was walking around to her side of the van.

I was just about to respond to her when I felt a hand grip the tops of my arms and a low voice said in my ear,

"What do you think you're doing?"

**A/N: So whatcha think? :P**

**Anywhoo. Are we all excited for the new chapter that's been added to The Host paperback edition?? I read an excerpt the other day and it looks goooood!!  
So many exciting things this week... The Host paperback... Glee returns... Vampire Diaries... ;) **

**Review! : )**

**Oh! And if you haven't already, please check out my other Host story First Meeting, and my new Twilight story Live and Let Die!**


	2. Here We Go Again

**Hey there! I just wanted to say that I'm really flattered about all of the wonderful comments I received regarding the first chapter! I mean, 24 reviews for one chapter is a lot for me. The response was overwhelming and I'm glad that everyone seemed to enjoy it!**

**Thank you very much to emotionalpoemgirl, Like-Vines-We-Intertwine, sapphirenight12, sweettara10, hanaharoo, oohapoo, piccolover22, jazi12amaze, ivamp3, PachO'shea, HockeeChica, littledhampir13, stephgirl123, Angie1212, jediahsokaroxx, RaraJay, tortor296, ollyrin, aleex9530, WhiteCamellia, howling-wolfe628 and hunny141 for your reviews!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own The Host or any of its characters; they belong to the lovely Stephenie Meyer. I do however, own the plot.**

**Wanda POV**

Every single muscle immediately froze up when I heard the voice behind me. I knew that I was trapped and that I probably wouldn't make it out of whatever was going to happen to me next; the little pill was inside the Jeep. They would know as soon as I turned around who I was, and I'd be shipped off of the planet right away, letting the Healers put another soul inside of Pet's body, which would essentially wipe out the caves. Sunny could make it out all right, but there would be no hope for Melanie in the car still.

The hands on my arms started to push and pull me at the same time and I tried to resist; they wanted me to turn around and I wasn't ready to do that. Once I did I would be betraying every single person back home. The hands were much stronger than I was though and I stumbled when they pushed particularly hard and ended up turning around.

I had plenty of time to scream, I supposed and I thought that it was weird that Sunny hadn't yelled out or anything. I kept my eyes closed, waiting for what was going to happen next, but I wasn't expecting what did happen at all.

Instead of being taken away or something, I felt the hands leave my arms and felt a pair of strong arms embracing me. My eyes flew open at once and I started pushing the person away; I couldn't see their face and I was still slight freaking out.

"Wanda, it's me," Ian's voice said in my ear and I relaxed. After a few seconds I tensed up again though; why was he out of the caves?

"Wanda, are you okay? Is everything all right?" he asked, pushing me away from him slightly and looked me right in the eyes.

"Everything's okay Ian," I answered, smiling a little bit.

"Good. Let's go," he said, taking my hand in his and started leading me away from the Jeep.

"Wait. Where are we going?" I asked, slightly panicking at the fact that we were leaving the Jeep unattended.

"I'm taking you back home right now," he said, his voice firm and I knew that he wasn't okay about something.

"What about the Jeep though?" I asked, trying to stop, but he kept pulling me along; he was much stronger than me.

"Jared and Kyle will take it back. Sunny and Melanie will be fine. You and I are taking the car back right now. I don't want to be out here any longer," he said and I sighed, continuing to follow him.

"I hate to ask you this, but can you drive us out of the city?" I was nodding before he'd even asked me the real question. Ian shook his head and got in the passenger side while I got in behind the wheel.

"We will be switching when I say so," he told me, clicking his seatbelt on as I put the car into drive and pulled away from the curb.

As I drove by the Jeep, I noticed Sunny and Kyle standing in the parking lot beside the car and they were talking about something. Kyle looked around him twice in the small amount of time that it took me to creep by them and Sunny gave me a smile. I returned a little one and pulled out of the parking lot and onto the main road.

Ian didn't speak to me the whole way through the city and I kept looking over at him to see if he was asleep or not. To any other person he would have seemed as calm as ever, but I knew better; I could tell by the slight look on his face that he was mad.

"Ian," I whispered to him, biting my bottom lip and looking at him once again. "Is everything all right?"

He didn't answer me and instead looked out his window, turning his face away from me. I sighed and merged onto the highway heading right out of the city. We continued driving along until he finally spoke to me.

"Pull over," he muttered but since it was so quiet in the car I heard him loud and clear. Rather than telling him that it was okay if I drove the whole way back, I pulled over and he was out of the car almost as soon as I'd put the car in park.

Ian was quickly over at my side and opening up the door before I had even got my seatbelt off. I took it off and slid over the centre console, falling slightly into the passenger seat as he got in behind the wheel and put the car in drive.

"You scared the hell out of me," Ian said and I breathed a sigh of relief; I didn't think that I could take the silent treatment from him anymore. I craved the sound of his voice and when he didn't speak to me it was almost the worst form of torture from him, almost; it was third to being strangled and hated by him, by far.

"Why were you out of the caves? I left you doing the laundry or something," Ian said, his voice hardening and I knew that I had to start explaining or he'd probably get really mad.

"It wasn't my idea at all and I really had no choice in the matter. Melanie essentially dragged me from the caves and out to the Jeep and then blackmailed me into going into the store with Sunny. I really didn't want to do it Ian, I swear to you. I wanted to turn around and go back right away; even before we'd gotten started, but she asked me to do this one thing for her and..."

"And you can't say no. You can never say no," Ian finished my sentence and I fell silent beside him.

"I'm sorry," I whispered, looking down at my hands that were clasped in my lap.

"I'm not mad at you," Ian responded sighing, but I still kept my head down. "I'm really not Wanda. I'll admit that you freaked the hell out of me when I saw you out there, but I do understand. I just don't like how you can never say 'no' to anyone."

"Then why are you being so quiet and everything?" I asked gently.

"Because I thought that you were somewhere safe and sound and then I randomly found you outside of a store while we were sitting there deciding if we should get more supplies or not. _That's_ why I was initially mad; it wasn't at you, just the situation and everything."

"Oh," I replied and felt the car bump slightly as we got off of the highway and onto the dirt of the desert. Ian got out to attach the small tarp to the back of the car and was back in the car very quickly. They had that down to an art, but I still hadn't mastered it just yet.

"So what were you guys out there for?" I asked once he'd gotten back into the car and started driving out into the desert.

"Some small supplies. Doc wanted another box of Heal just in case; he seems to be going through it at a rapid pace and Jeb wanted to make sure that we had enough just in case," he was being very cryptic and I wasn't a fan of that.

"Just in case of what?" I asked, turning in me seat so that I was facing him. Ian looked over at me and took my hand in his, giving it a light squeeze.

"He's just afraid that once we get people up on ladders cleaning the mirrors that there might be a few more accidents than normal, that's all."

He was lying. Ian wouldn't look at me for a few moments after he gave that excuse and I frowned, not understanding why he would feel the need to lie to me _again_. After all that we had been through I would have thought that he trusted me enough, but apparently not. Sitting in the car wasn't the right time or place for that conversation; it would have to wait until we were back inside the caves and not out in the open.

"So what were you guys out there for anyway? I didn't get a good look at the store that you were in," Ian asked, smiling widely at me.

"A wedding dress for Mel," I replied simply and he nodded.

"Did you find one?"

"Yeah we found a really pretty one for her. She wanted me to go with them because I knew what her dream dress looked like from when I was inside her head and we needed Sunny for a model. Plus, having two souls in a store like that is way better than just one; it would have raised a lot of questions. We had to make up some story about how Sunny was still tracking down her 'mother' but she'd be there in time for the wedding," I explained and Ian chuckled.

"I still don't know how you guys get away with lying to them like that. You're horrible liars," he said and I stuck my tongue out at him, which made him laugh harder.

"Who does that?" he said, looking over at me and I shrugged.

"I do I suppose," I answered and he laughed again. Hearing the sound of Ian's laughter was very magical to me; it made me feel better in an instant and it didn't hurt that I loved to hear the sound of it either.

"I don't think I've had anyone stick their tongue out at me like that since like, grade school or something," he said, and I could tell that his mind was miles away. "I remember that in grade two I told this girl that I liked her and she stuck her tongue out at me, told me I was 'icky' and ran away from me. That was probably the last time."

As Ian reminisced about that time in his life I couldn't help but to feel a pang of jealousy shoot through my chest. I told myself that it was stupid to feel that way; he like that girl back when he was eight years old, but the thought of him liking someone else made me feel a little insecure about our relationship. I knew that it wasn't rational to think like that; surely he'd had girlfriends back before everything had happened and everything. I was sure that I wasn't the first person that he'd had feelings for before in his life, but I supposed that the reason I felt so strongly about it was because _I_ had never had feelings like that for anybody else on any of the planets I'd been on. I sat there and listened to him laughing as I thought about all of that.

"In all seriousness though, how did being in that store affect you?" Ian asked once he'd calmed down a little bit.

"What do you mean?"

"Like, were you happy to be in there and shopping for her like that?"

"Well, yeah, I guess it did," I responded, shrugging a little bit. "I mean, watching Sunny dress up and everything was pretty amusing to watch. Especially since the girl with us didn't exactly pick out the most wonderful dresses in the world."

"Sounds like it was fun for you two," Ian commented, giving my hand a light squeeze.

"I guess. I think that it was nice because I kind of forgot all about the situation that we're all in. I felt like a normal...well, not human because I will never be... but you know? Obviously it wasn't normal at all and everything, but it just... it was kind of an...escape. That's not the right..."

"Because you could forget about absolutely everything?" Ian asked, his voice a little harder than before.

"Well, yes, but..."

"Because you could forget about me and be a normal soul like you should have been?" Ian interrupted me and I turned to him, frowning and shaking my head.

"Ian. No, I..."

"Can you run inside while I get someone to unload?" he cut me off again and I noticed that we were in the rocky cover by the caves and I nodded my head, but I wasn't ready to be done with our conversation.

"We can talk when we get back to the room, okay? I want to finish this, but we can't do it while we're unloading and stuff." He could probably see the look of resistance on my face as he quickly started talking again.

"Look, I'll get someone else to take the car back to the rockslide; it'll be okay until I find someone to do that but please Wanda?"

"Fine," I agreed, letting go of his hand to take off my seatbelt and he was by my car door opening it up for me in an instant.

"Thank you," he said, smiling at me and I half-returned it, but I started walking towards the truck, my mind running a mile a minute with the endless questions that were swimming around in it.

I grabbed a larger box of Heal, which Ian took from me and replaced with a smaller one, and headed towards the entrance. I ducked inside and was met by a few people who seemed to be just milling around the doorway, apparently waiting for us to return as they rushed forwards as I entered with Ian close behind me.

"Where is everybody?" Jeb immediately asked. "Aaron, take that box from Wanda or Ian and I want answers before you two move again."

Aaron followed Jeb's instructions and took the box from me while Brandt took the stuff from Ian's hands and disappeared down the hallway. I was nearly knocked over then by something that had run directly into me. I could tell by the person's overall size that it was Jamie and I tentatively wrapped my arms around him.

"Are you okay?" I asked gently and he shook his head, backing away from me.

"Where were you? I was looking for you and Mel and you were gone!" he said.

It was interesting to hear Jamie talk because his voice had started dropping which I was told was a normal part of a male's development, but it still shook me as funny when he talked. I just wasn't used to hearing it so low. Mel, Jared and Ian liked to make fun of him when it fluctuated between being high and low, but I always stood up for him.

"Mel, Sunny and I went shopping for something. It was all your sister's idea; we really had no say in the matter. I really didn't want to go, but you know her," I explained and I could see Jeb shaking his head out of the corner of my eye.

"Do you have any idea how much fuss that caused around here? The three of you are gone with the boys out already; people were freaking out!" Jeb said, immediately starting to chastise me and I ducked my head.

"It was so dangerous for the three of you to just leave like that. I thought that something had seriously happened and put everyone on red alert! They're all ready to leave at a moment's notice, and I know for a fact that many of them are not happy about this. Imagine my surprise when I went to go and check on how the laundry was going and I just find a basket down there unattended!" Jeb continued to half yell at me and I could feel tears prick at the corners of my eyes, but I refused to let them fall at all.

"Hey! There's no need to be yelling at Wanda because of this. If you've got to tell anyone off, it should be your niece; she's the one who had the brilliant idea in the first place," Ian interjected and I could hear his footsteps echo off of the walls around us before I felt his arm wrap around my stomach and it pulled me back slightly until I was pressed up against him.

"I was just telling her about the consequences of their actions, that's all," Jeb said defending himself and I nodded in agreement to his defence.

"Don't you think that Wanda of all people knows what the consequences would be?" Ian asked and no one answered his question; his words just seemed to hang in the air around us. When it remained silent until we could hear more footsteps coming towards us, Ian backed the two of us up a step and I had no choice but to follow him.

"Right, are we done here?" he asked and I looked up to see Jeb nod and Jamie walk towards the door, presumably to get more of the boxes from the car. "Good. The car still has stuff in it and then it needs to be taken back to the rockslide. Can I trust that you'll get someone to do that for me?"

"Sure thing, Ian" Jeb responded, but I could tell that he wasn't done with the conversation or the rant that he seemed to be on.

"Come on, Wanda," Ian whispered in my ear and started leading me away. He let his arm slide out from where it was wrapped around me and he took my hand in his instead.

When we reached the main plaza I could make out the noise of a bunch of people talking and figured that it was the place that Jeb had everyone waiting in case they had to leave at a moment's notice. We entered the space and they all fell silent and I could feel everyone's eyes on us.

"You can all go back to what you were doing before, everything is fine," Ian addressed everyone, his voice echoing around the large space.

"Says who? Jebediah wanted us all here so that we could leave quickly!" Maggie called out from within the crowd of people. I knew it was her voice, even though she wasn't visible to me.

"Yeah well I just talked to Jeb and he said that you can all relax," Ian responded, tugging on my hand a little so that we could continue walking. I followed behind him as we left the now grumbling crowd behind us as they dispersed to wherever they wanted to go.

"You okay Wanda?" Ian asked me once we were away from the majority of people and just about to enter the tube that lead to the spider web of sleeping hallways.

"I'm fine Ian. Are you okay?" I responded, nodding up at Ian and giving him a small smile.

"Of course I am. But I wasn't the one that Jeb was yelling at out there," he said and I shrugged my shoulders.

"I'm fine."

"You didn't seem to be so fine when he was doing that," he said, leading me down the hall towards his room.

"Because I guess I didn't expect him to really yell at me like that. But I get it. It scared him and everyone else, and that was partly my fault for leaving with them," I said, firmly believing that.

"Are you kidding me? You don't ever deserve to be treated like that, no matter what happens!" Ian said incredulously. I frowned a little bit before I realized that he obviously hadn't noticed how people were really treating me around the caves or he would have made a fuss about that too.

"It's nothing Ian."

"It is _not_ nothing," he said a bit harshly, stopping us in the middle of the way to look right down at me. I couldn't help but to meet his gaze with one of my own; silver meeting blue and felt a little intimidated by him.

"Ian..."

"Don't try and brush me off, I won't let that happen. If I need to keep standing up for you again and again I will. I definitely will. But you need to start seeing that you shouldn't be bullied around like that by him or Melanie or anybody. You're stronger than that, Wanda," he said to me, tucking a stray piece of golden hair behind my ear. "I know that you are. You're one of the strongest people that I've met before."

At his words I started shaking my head and broke my gaze from his, looking down at the floor.

"What?" he asked and I could see his shoes take a step closer to me. I noticed that they were getting a little ratty; I would have to get him a new pair the next time that I was out.

"I'm not strong. You guys are. You've all survived through everything that you have been through. That's something that I can't say. I just went along my merry old way and didn't think anything about my life or what we were doing to the species that we took over. So it's you who are the strong ones," I said and he pulled me forwards again in silence until he reached the doors.

Ian let go of my hand to push the door aside and then motioned for me to go first into the room. I entered and stood awkwardly in the entranceway; even though I had been living in there with him, I still felt as though I was intruding on his space, though that wasn't the case at all. Ian sighed after he'd put the door back in place and gave me a sad smile.

"Sit down or something. I hate it when you act like an outsider in here. This is your room too, I want you to feel at home," he said gently and I nodded, settling down on the edge of the bed while he came to sit beside me.

"Wanda, you really don't see yourself clearly, do you? Even after all this time with us, you still don't see how strong you are?"

"Well, I just think that you all have been through way more than I ever have; even though I'm very much older than you and have experienced a lot more. Technically I'm still a baby on this planet compared to the rest of you. So no, I don't think that I'm strong at all," I responded, focusing on a little crack in the floor as I spoke.

"It takes ones hell of a strong creature to stand up and resist against their own kind," Ian pointed out and I sighed before I lay back on the bed. I stared up at a crack in the ceiling, but all I could see was the black night sky above; there wasn't even a star in that little space that I could look at.

"What, you don't think so?" he asked and I felt the mattress shift with him as he lay beside me and the distribution of weight made the bed flop a little bit.

I glanced to my right and saw him looking down on me from where he was positioned with his left elbow propped up and his head resting on the same hand.

"It's not the same," I finally answered him, turning my head back up to the ceiling above.

"I beg to differ," he scoffed and I shrugged, not willing to continue that conversation. I knew that it was sometimes better to let him believe what he wanted and not always contradict everything; it never got us very far anyways.

A certain stillness fell upon us then until I felt Ian's hand start to sweep through my hair and it felt good to me; Pet had always enjoyed when Cloud Spinner would play with her hair and it was a trait of hers that I enjoyed as well. There was just something calming about the action. Granted, it didn't calm me nearly as much as when Ian touched the scar on the back of my neck, but just having any part of him touching me did the trick nearly every time.

"Wanda about earlier... I know that you probably won't want to talk about it, but I have to know," Ian started to say before sighing heavily and I instantly knew what he wanted to talk about.

"Did you really mean it when you said that you liked being able to forget everything?" I could hear the sadness in his voice and though it wasn't very prominent in his words, I knew that it was the undertone that drove him to ask me that.

"Ian," I breathed, rolling over onto my right side so that I could look right at him and try to make him understand what I really meant.

"I didn't... I mean..."I paused for a second to collect my thoughts so that they didn't come out all jumbled and make him even more confused.

"What I mean to say is that yes, I liked that I was able to forget; but the feeling only lasted for a moment or two at the most. The rest of the time I was nearly paralyzed in terror at the fact that Melanie was out in the Jeep and could have been discovered at any moment. I was also concerned for you as well," I said, trying to make him grasp what I was saying.

"Why?" he enquired and reached his right hand out to brush it through my hair again. "Why would you be concerned for me?"

"Because we had just up and left the caves. I was worried that you would discover that I was missing and then do something rash and stupid and get yourself hurt or worse in the process. I tried so desperately to speed along the appointment to get back as fast as possible Ian, I really did."

I ended up pleading with him because I could see that he still wasn't totally convinced with what I was trying to convey to him. I knew that he wouldn't demand any more information than I would willingly give him, and I could see the exact effect that my earlier words had on him and I didn't like that one bit.

"Ian, I could never forget about you. You're a very, _very_ important part of my life and it would take a whole lot more than just going out and shopping with Sunny for an hour to make me stop thinking about you. And although it was nice to pretend that I was 'normal'," I used air quotes with my left hand as my right was trapped under my body. "It was just that; I was pretending. I could never go back to that life, not now, not ever and I hope that you realize that. All of you down here have had a profound impact on me and I don't ever want it to change."

Ian appeared to be digesting my words as he got sort of a faraway look in his eyes before he sat up abruptly and turned to help me up as well. Once I was upright he twisted his entire body so that it was facing mine, with his right foot flat on the floor and the left one curled in front of him.

"Are you sure you would never want to leave this place?"

"I could never leave you," I said fiercely before realizing that it had happened to us twice before. "I will _never_ leave you ever again," I reconciled, fixing my words to get the point across.

"I believe you," he whispered gently and I could feel his breath softly fan across my cheek as he leaned closer and wrapped an arm around my shoulder to cup the back of my head while scooting a little nearer to me.

"But just so you know, if you ever get tired of me or you want out of our relationship, please just tell me and I'll let you go. I won't hold you back from that, ever."

"I could never get tired of you, Ian," I said, offended that he would think that I would just up and leave like that. "I believe that our souls are intertwined and that we're meant to be together, if that makes sense. I never want to leave your side ever again. But just so _you_ know, if you ever get bored, or tired of defending me or sticking by me, you're free to go as well."

"I'm not going anywhere," Ian told me in a firm voice, cupping my cheeks in both of his palms. His hands still nearly covered my entire face and it felt like there was a fire burning just under the skin where he touched me, but I liked it. I liked it a lot.

Ian smiled broadly at me and I returned the simple gesture and before I knew what was happening he had leaned in close to me and kissed my left cheek. His breath tickled my ear as he whispered,

"I'm sorry that I accused you of that before, it was wrong of me."

"It was my fault. I worded the explanation badly," I said and he chuckled, the sound making my insides squirm.

"Please stop trying to blame yourself, Wanda. We were having a good time," Ian teased and I shook my head back and forth, gently pulling his face away from mine so that I could look at him. "What, we weren't?"

"How come you don't kiss me?" I asked just before my face flushed scarlet with a very different kind of heat.

"What do you mean, I just kissed your cheek?" Ian inquired with a slight frown creasing his brow while I reached up to smooth it out with my fingers.

"No, I mean like _really_ kiss me," I attempted to make it clear to him what I meant, even if it was only embarrassing me further.

"Oh," he said simply and I nodded, looking away from him.

"It's okay, I was just wondering..." I trailed off as he interrupted me.

"Please don't be shy about it, I'm glad that you asked," Ian informed me and I could detect the smile in his voice even though I wasn't looking in his direction at all.

A few seconds later I felt his calloused fingers under my chin lifting it up with a gentle force and I had to comply. I peeked up at him then and noticed that he was indeed smiling like a loon and his face was also getting closer to mine. On instinct, my stomach began doing somersaults inside like it always did when we got that close together, and my heart sped up to about a million beats a second, the blood pounding through my veins.

"To be quite honest with you," he began, whispering to me and touching our noses together. "I was trying to give you some space after what had happened. I didn't want to rush you into anything that you wouldn't be comfortable with, that was all."

"It's fine Ian," I whispered back.

"Good," he murmured just prior to dipping his head down a tiny bit and capturing my lips with his.

At first I was surprised that he'd done it so soon after I'd brought the subject up, but then I closed my eyes and began to return his kiss. I was vaguely aware of his hands being on my back and neck, gently tilting my head back a bit, but Ian's mere presence consumed me so much that I didn't even know my own name for sure anymore. I had been waiting for that moment for awhile and I wanted to cherish it as it just proved that we were taking another step in the right direction.

The slow fire that had been building inside of me for all the time that I had known Ian had finally ignited into something bigger and better with that one kiss. It was just the same as that gasoline to a lighter feeling that Mel got when she was with Jared and I found that it completely filled me up inside.

Several moments later, much to my dismay Ian broke his lips from mine and proceeded to place tiny kisses all over my face; showering my eyelids with gentle caresses before he laid one more kiss on my waiting lips. I let that one linger a bit longer before it became absolutely necessary for us to breathe.

He pulled his face away from mine just a tiny bit and as I panted for air I noticed that somehow I had become seated on his lap and had both of my hands wrapped in his hair. I felt a little self-conscious about that, but I knew that none of it mattered the moment that I looked into Ian's eyes. I realized then that he had felt the same thing that I had and I couldn't resist but to place another kiss on his lips. I understood then that we would be just fine.

**A/N: All right. School is done. Tryouts for skating are done. Now all I have to do is work, but I've got the next week off anyways, so I'll have the third chapter out on Sunday!**

**Review! : )**


	3. It's Alright, It's Okay

**Hey guys! I'm really glad that you like my story so far and I'm really thankful for that! Things will start to pick up soon, I promise.**

**Thanks to HockeeChica, howling-wolf28, sapphirenight12, ladaane, emotionalpoemgirl, hanaharoo, aleex9350, twihardhannah, WhiteCamellia, PachO'shea, DracoMalfor4Ever, RawSugarX23 and native-soul for your wonderful reviews!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own The Host or any of its characters; they belong to the lovely Stephenie Meyer. I do however, own the plot.**

**Ian POV**

_"I love you. I love you. I love you,"_ I repeated in my head over and over again as I looked up at Wanda and where she was sitting on my lap. I could say it in my head a million times, but how hard was it to say out loud to her? I knew that I truly felt that way, but I supposed that telling her that right then would seem a little cheesy, especially since she was the one who had grown a pair and confronted me about the kissing thing. I had wanted to kiss her properly for a long time, but I just wasn't sure how she was feeling about everything, so I held off on it. I must have pushed it too far or something though for her to ask like that, and I vowed to never let that happen again.

"Are you okay?" she inquired gently, twirling her fingers through the hair at the back of my head and I couldn't help but to nod my head and marvel at her amazing ability to put others before herself. In a way though it could be seen as a bad thing; as Melanie had so graciously demonstrated when she used it to blackmail my Wanda into going outside with her.

"I'm fine," I responded, rubbing my thumb against her small cheek and simply watched as the blush instantly painted her soft skin like magic. "Are you?"

"I'm good. No, I'm really good," Wanda amended, bending her head down towards mine once again, to which I instinctively reacted by inclining mine up to meet hers halfway. The result was that our lips met in another heated battle and it felt like my heart was going to split in two with the love that I felt for her; there was so much of it that it was very overwhelming.

I decided to take a chance and see just how far Wanda would be willing to take it; not that I was going to seriously push anything, I was too much of a gentleman for that, but just one step further wouldn't hurt. If she pushed me away, then I would know that she wasn't ready. As her lips left mine so that she could take a short breath, I gave her a quick grin before I felt them back on mine. When they met again, I slipped my tongue out and let it touch her lips for a second, testing to see what her reaction to that would be.

I could feel her lips curve up into a smile before they opened up for me and my tongue slipped inside of her mouth. Our tongues clashed for dominance for awhile until she drew away from me again, but I wasn't ready to let go of her just yet, so I buried my face into her neck, kissing at the skin there instead.

"Please don't leave a mark there," Wanda breathed heavily and I stopped kissing her for a second, unwillingly ripping my lips from her porcelain skin.

"Why not?" I whined a little bit, but my voice was much lower than it normally was and I knew that it was because of Wanda's affect on me.

"Just... please," she pleaded with me while still trying to catch her breath.

I simply nodded before gently placing my hands on either side of her head and holding it in place. I knew that she would be questioning me, but instead I placed soft kisses on her skin, creating a trail from her shoulder up to her lips where I lay another kiss upon them. I then pulled away from her and looked Wanda right in her eyes.

"Are we okay?" I inquired, nuzzling my nose against hers and she simply beamed back at me, nodding her head ever so slightly and biting her bottom lip that was red and swollen at the same time.

"Good," I said, kissing her cheek one last time. "I think that we should get some sleep then. We've had a big night."

"We sure have had a big night," Wanda echoed me and I knew that she had felt something as well. When we had kissed for that first time I knew that something inside of me had changed. It was hard to find words to describe the feeling that I had felt, but I hadn't realized that she had experienced something similar to that as well until that moment.

"I've got to go and retrieve the laundry that I left down at the river room though before I sleep; I probably shouldn't leave it down there all night," Wanda told me, climbing off of my lap and sitting beside me. I quickly scrambled on top of her, effectively caging Wanda's small body underneath mine and forcing her to lie back down onto the mattress.

"I will go and get it. You stay here and relax a bit, okay?" I basically instructed Wanda, quirking my eyebrow at her for good measure and she laughed. Her laugh was very contagious, so I ended up chuckling along with her.

"Fine," she sighed, caving in to my request. "But come back quickly, okay?"

"I'll be back before you know it," I promised, leaning in to press another sloppy kiss on her cheek.

"Eww, Ian!" Wanda giggled, wiping it off her cheek dramatically, but I knew that it was all very theatrical, for she was beaming the whole time.

I pushed myself up and off of her using my arms to propel me and Wanda used the opportunity while I was standing up to scoot her way up to the top of the bed. I made my way over to her side and held up the sheet for her while she got settled underneath of it before I brought them up higher to tuck her in. I could see Wanda rolling her eyes as I bent forwards to kiss her forehead.

"Hurry back," Wanda said while nodding ehr head and I smirked at her.

"I'll be back before you know it," I replied, smoothing her hair down one last time before I turned from her bedside and walked towards the door. I really didn't want to leave her, but I knew that she was right; we couldn't leave the laundry down by the pool all night, someone was liable to make off with it if they hadn't already.

I had a slight bounce in my step as I walked down the hall toward the fork in the sleeping tubes and as I got closer I could hear several voices speaking to each other about something, but I couldn't exactly make out what they were saying. I decided to stay out of whatever was going on so that I could just go about my business as quickly as possible to not keep Wanda waiting; I certainly didn't have any hopes for what exactly she wanted me for, but knowing her it would be something simple like lying with her as she fell asleep. Of course I wouldn't deny her of that, one of my favourite things to do was just to hold her; and it didn't matter to me where we were.

As I got nearer to the fork, the voices became clearer, and I could tell that Melanie and Jared were arguing with each other again. I shook my head as I stepped out into the area that they were in and noticed Kyle with them as well, but for once in his life he was being quiet. All of their heads snapped around to look at me and I felt a little self-conscious and continued to move towards the entranceway by skirting around the walls.

"Don't let me disturb your fun," I said to them in a joking manner.

"No, you're actually just the person we were looking for," Jared said and I stopped moving, turning to frown at him instead.

"But you knew where I was, you could have just gone and knocked on the door and I would have come out to play, you know," I teased and heard several footstep and looked to my left just in time to dodge Kyle's fist before it came into contact with my arm. "Hey!"

"Kyle, leave him alone!" Melanie hissed and he complied, stepping back only to cross his arms over his chest in his 'menacing' look. "Jeb is looking for you. We were debating whether or not you were sleeping and if we should wake you up," she finally explained.

"Is it something that can wait until the morning? I just want to get the laundry I was going to retrieve and then go to bed," I said, sighing. Of course he would find something that needed to be done right then though; it never mattered to him what the others were doing, as long as his jobs were completed.

"I don't think so," Jared said, shrugging and giving me an apologetic face. "After he read us the riot act when we got back, he practically demanded that you go and see him right away. He thinks that he's seen something out there again. We all had a look and didn't see anything, but he wants your expert opinion too."

"I will go down and get the laundry. I know where she left it because I'm the one who dragged her away from it in the first place. Sorry about that, by the way," Melanie offered, but I didn't accept her apology for giving me a near heart attack when I saw Wanda out by that store. For all I had known, something had happened in the caves and she had been taken away from me again.

"How is this going to be explained to Wanda though?" I inquired, looking them all right in the eyes. "I don't want her to know about whatever is going on out there; I don't want to freak her out or anything and she'll already be suspicious if I don't show up with the laundry like I said that I would."

"I will go and get it," Mel said, stepping forward. "I can just make up some excuse that I went and beat you to the punch or something and that I didn't see you along the way. It's no big deal."

"Fine," I relented, moving towards the entrance. "Where is Jeb?"

"Up top," Kyle finally spoke and made himself be known for more than just a fly on the wall through the whole conversation. "I can come with you if you want."

"No, I'm good," I told him, not getting why he would feel the need to come with me. "Where's Sunny? Don't you need to be with her?"

"She went with Jamie to get him something to eat before bed. They'll be back soon though, I'm sure. I'm still coming up just in case you two decide to be gentle about this or something; then you'll need a take charge person," Kyle said and I shook my head, but walked away from him. If he wanted to follow he could, but I didn't want him there, per say.

I arrived at our little hiding spot outside the caves and found Jeb there, looking through the binoculars at the landscape around us while whistling out one of his tunes. Jeb turned around and spotted me while still looking through the binoculars before breaking out into a wide smile and taking them down from his eyes.

"What did you bring him for?" he asked, jutting his chin out towards Kyle and I shrugged, shaking my head.

"Trust me, I didn't want to him to come along, he just sort of followed me out here like a lost puppy dog or something," I explained and Jeb frowned at him.

"Beat it," Jeb said simply to Kyle, pointing towards the direction back to the caves and I bit back a smile at his bluntness.

"But I figured that you needed someone else with a bit of muscle out here just in case, you know?" Kyle said, flexing his arm muscles at us, which was pretty ridiculous, considering that we were all men and had plenty of muscles to go around.

"Get inside," Jeb said in a threatening voice and Kyle shook his head and waved his hand at us as we watched his retreating back get farther and farther away from us. Eventually he was gone from eyesight and that was when Jeb spoke to me.

"Ian I called you up here to have a look at something that I saw out here earlier before you all came back, which was probably why I was a bit hard on you all when you got back from your little raid and stuff," Jeb explained to me, handing me the binoculars and pointed me out in the same direction that he was looking in before.

"I don't see anything," I said honestly, slightly annoyed with Jeb if he had called me out for something that wasn't even there in the first place. I kept looking around though, just in case I did find something in another place.

"It's out there. You just have to keep looking and be a little patient and it will move around again. It doesn't appear to be following the pattern of the lines I left some people, but I can't be sure. I'm not sure if it's the same one from before or not though."

"Jeb, do you think that it's alone, or are there other people with them?" I asked, focussing in on a spot where I thought that I saw something moving in the desert, but I wasn't sure if it was from the wind or not.

"No idea. What do you think that we should do about it, Ian?"

"Well, I definitely think that we need to keep an eye on it to see if it's alone or not, and if it's just looking around or not. Remember how Wanda's Seeker just sort of searched around but didn't come close? Maybe they're doing it again or something because of the whole ordeal with Pet's mother when Wanda was out there with them," I suggested, stifling a yawn as I kept my eye trained on the unmoving spot.

"Possibly. I believe that you're right about the watching it deal. I'll do it for awhile, and then you can come and relieve me, okay? But I don't know if it has anything to do with Wanda this time. How would they have known to come all the way down here looking for her? You guys don't leave trails or anything when you're out," he pointed out and I nodded.

"That's true," I agreed with him. "Well, if you notice anything out there, come and get me right away. Unless you don't want my input, which is totally justified, seeing as how it's your place and all and you make all the decisions."

To my surprise, Jeb burst out into a belly aching laugh and I was temporarily frozen as it echoed through the vast space that was around us. While I was stuck in one place, I scanned my eyes around the landscape that was immediately in front of me to make sure that nothing was disturbed by his outburst.

"Relax, Ian. If something was out there to get us, it would have shot us or run over at the first decibel that had echoed through the air. Now pass me those binoculars and get back inside to sleep some before I come to get you up here to take over for me," Jeb instructed and I willingly handed over the binoculars and spun around to head back to the caves.

Once I got back inside, I headed back down to my room and I was really tired. It had been an emotionally charging day all around; first Jared wanted us to go out and get some Heal because he had some 'feeling' in him about whatever, and then we find the girls out there as well. I seriously needed a vacation, I realized as I scrubbed my face with my hands, especially after everything I'd been through in the last six months; hell, we all did, but we simply couldn't ever have one anymore. That was just another thing that had been taken away from us.

I carefully edged the door aside so that I could step through as quietly as possible, just in case other people were sleeping or something. In the moonlight I noticed the laundry stacked in a pile right beside the door and I stepped around it just in time so that it didn't get knocked over and undid all of Wanda's earlier work. I quickly made my way over to the bed and crawled in under the covers to curl around Wanda's back. As soon as I touched her I knew that she was asleep for her body didn't move at all, except with the slow and steady rhythm of her breathing.

I groaned and rolled over onto my back and ran my left hand through my hair before letting it rest under the back of it. I stared up at the ceiling, thinking about the person that could have been out there walking on the ground over top of our rooms. I knew that the ground was thick enough to hold people without having them fall through; Jeb had told me one time about how he'd tracked his way around to the top of the tubes and jumped all over the place to test it. Plus, we hadn't had any cave-ins at any time that I had been living in the caves with everyone, so I still believed that it was okay.

I couldn't believe that I had been away so long that Wanda had fallen asleep before I'd gotten back; that really wasn't my intention to. I wanted to be back before then, as she had not only asked me to be back, but because I just wanted to after our little breakthrough and everything. As I lay there, Wanda rolled over towards me and settled her head on my chest as her legs intertwined with mine. I grinned at her move and wrapped my right arm around her torso when I felt something drumming on my chest so I looked down at met her silver eyes.

"I fell asleep," Wanda whispered groggily and I could see that she was fighting to keep her eyes open to look up at me. "Mmmmn you said you were coming back in time."

"I know, I'm sorry," I apologized, offering her a small smile in apology while smoothing the hair back off of her head. "I got talking to my brother for awhile and then the laundry wasn't there for me to get."

"I know, Melanie brought it back," she said sleepily and I chuckled at her a little bit, watching her head bounce a little from my motions. "She beat you to it."

"Indeed she did," I murmured, watching Wanda's heavy eyes close and I could see that she was giving up the fight to keep her eyes open. "Go to sleep, Wanda."

"Mmmmm," she groaned one last time before I felt her fingers stop moving and I could tell that she'd fallen asleep again. I let the smile linger on my face until it faded away and my heart felt like it was full at that point with her curled up against me like that. I had to think of a good plan to tell her that I loved her, I decided while combing my fingers through her soft, silky hair.

**Jared POV**

"Well, did you at least get what you were out there looking for?" I asked Mel while we walked along to get Wanda and Ian's laundry. I hadn't wanted to, opting to go and lie down but she had forced me using a combination of her literal body force as she pinched my arm hard and then threatened me. I essentially had no choice in the matter so I trudged along beside her with my hands in my pockets.

"We sure did," she chirped and got this almost dreamy look on her face. That was enough to cheer me up a little bit and I reached out to wrap my arm around her waist and pull her into my side so that I could place a kiss on the top of her head. "Well, at least Wanda and Sunny did."

"Didn't you get to have a say in what they picked? I mean, clearly you couldn't go into the store and whatever, which I am eternally grateful that you didn't even try to, by the way, but still," I said, probably sounding stupid to her, but thankfully she didn't say anything about it.

"Well Wanda was supposed to keep in mind what I had imagined myself in from before and all, and I trust them," she concluded. "I haven't actually seen the dress, but that's just a small technicality in the grand scheme of things, really."

"Who are you and what have you done with the usual sassy Melanie," I teased and received a glare from her. "I'm just kidding with you, baby."

I braced myself for the contact that I was sure would come when she smacked my shoulder, but it never came. Instead, we simply walked along until we came to the opening to the river room and I could hear the echoes from the streams flowing through loud in my ears.

"I forgot to bring a flashlight," I groaned while peering into the dark space. "How are we ever going to find the laundry this way? It will take all night!"

Melanie simply let go of me and walked away while I watched her retreating back until it was swallowed by darkness. I stayed where I was so that I could leave that place with Mel fast whenever she returned to crawl into my bed and fall fast asleep; that was what I was looking forward to the most. In a few seconds, she returned into my line of sight and I could tell that she was holding something in her arms. Once she got close enough to me I stepped forward with my arms out, offering to take the clothes from her but she shook her head and continued to walk right past me. I smirked before I turned around and followed her out of the room, not at all surprised that she had just breezed by me like that.

As soon as I caught up to her we kept walking side by side until we got out into the main plaza, not really speaking to each other. Personally, I was exhausted and I could tell that Mel was tired as well as she was shifting the weight around in her arms quite a bit.

"Just pass it over here," I instructed her, taking a chance in dictating what she should do as I placed my arm on hers and stopped us in the plaza.

"Jared, I'm fine," she replied but it wasn't convincing enough for me so I simply reached over and took the load out of her arms and walked away without saying a word. I looked behind me and saw her standing there in the moonlight glaring at me so I just smiled at her.

"Just wait one minute, Jared Howe!" she called after me and I slowed my pace when I heard her running footsteps on the ground. "I was perfectly fine with carrying that, you know. You don't have to be all 'knight in shining armour' like and save the day and whatnot."

"I know," I shrugged, not really caring about what her argument was going to be. "I just want to finish this up quickly. I know that we're both tired and stuff, so let's just make this go faster, okay?"

Mel grumbled some form of a response but didn't make any move to take the stuff away from me so I counted that as a battle won. I knew that in our lives together we would have many fights; we already had minor ones and stuff, but I thought that the reason we did disagree was because we were both just looking out for one another. That was where our personalities clashed, but I could look past that part; I loved her way too much to not do that. Overall I believed that we would have a happy life together, and I could certainly picture little ones running around. Ideally, I would never want to bring a child into the world that we lived in, but I didn't ever get my hopes up too much about getting out and having our lives get back to normal. Waiting wasn't much of an option, because I didn't want to waste time and then have us be too old if we ever did make it out. Living in hiding had certainly changed my view on things, and if we ever did bring a child into our environment I had no doubt that it would be well loved by everybody, as we had our own little community instead of just Mel and I on the run on our own.

Eventually we made it back to Wanda and Ian's room and I handed the clothes over to Mel who took them in to her. I waited outside and could hear Mel giving her lame excuse to Wanda, who ate it up right away and totally believed her. I sighed and shook my head a little bit; Wanda was a bit too trusting sometimes. I needed to work with her on that, but I wasn't sure how much of that could be changed, and how much of that was just how souls were in general. Mel came out rolling her eyes at me, to which I just smiled and held my hand out for her to take, which she did gladly. As I led her back to our room I felt her hand squeeze mine a few times and when I held back the curtain she kind of gracefully skipped inside and stood there, facing me.

"What?" I asked cautiously, noticing right away the smirk and the look on her face; it usually meant that she was up to no good.

"Nothing," Mel answered innocently, looking up at me through her eyelashes, which she knew affected me. "I was just hoping that you weren't too tired tonight, Jared."

"What do you mean?" I frowned, taking another step inside the room. "Of course I'm tired, and you should be too. We were working our asses off all day and then I went on a raid and you were out and everything, you know that."

Quick as a flash, Mel had her shirt up and over her head and she threw it at me; I caught it right away, but couldn't take my eyes off of her.

"I know. I was just hoping that we could do a little something else, Mr. Howe, that's all," Mel said kind of innocently, but I took two great strides and was at her side, holding her in my arms in an instant.

**A/N: Done school, so there will be updates from now on every Sunday, just like they used to be way back in the day for Broken and Bleeding.**

**Review : )**


	4. Mama

**Happy Mother's Day! This one goes out to all the Moms out there!**

**Thanks to piccolover22, RawSugarX23, emotionalpoemgirl, jediasokaroxx, sapphirenight12, hanaharoo, howling-wolf628, twihardhannah, DracoMalfoy4Ever, PachO'Shea, Sillla, ladaane, HockeeChica, native-soul and O'SheaFan for your wonderful reviews!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own The Host or any of its characters; they belong to the lovely Stephenie Meyer. I do however, own the plot.**

**Wanda POV**

I was holding onto the bottom two legs of the ladder with dear life, trying not to let it rock from side to side, but it was very exhausting work. Ian was up at the top cleaning a few mirrors in that spot, but every time that he shifted his weight around to reach another one the entire ladder swayed with the movement. It was taking every ounce of muscle that I had to keep the enormous thing still and I was pretty sure that I wasn't doing the best job on the planet.

"Hey stranger," a deep voice said from directly behind me and I jumped about a mile in my spot, which effectively swayed the ladder around and I desperately tried to stop its movement.

"Woah!" Ian called from the top of it where I could see that he was hanging on for dear life and I recognized Jared's chuckle as he leaned forwards, reaching around me to place his hands on the legs of the ladder and helped me to anchor it until it stopped shifting.

"Was there something you needed?" I asked, once he'd deemed it okay to let go and take a few steps away from me. I turned around to face him, giving him a bit of a glare; the best one that I could come up with and I was sure that it was pretty lame.

"Yeah, I'm looking for Ian," he said, glancing up the ladder where Ian had resumed working now that everything was balanced out again. I leaned back against it gently to further brace it and shrugged.

"Why?" I was very curious about what they were up to, since Ian had been pulled away by them more than one time in the last two days and I really wanted to know.

"Because I just need him. Hey, O'Shea!" Jared hollered up to Ian and I saw a few people stare at us because of his little outburst and I started flushing a nice colour of red. I looked up at Ian and saw that he was grinning at us and then I felt the ladder start to shake as he began his descent to the ground.

"What do you want?" Ian hollered once he was a little closer to the ground and I moved out of the way so that he could come all the way down. Once his feet were firmly on the dirt, he took a step towards me to wrap an arm around my waist, to which I responded by leaning into his side a little bit.

"Can you walk with me? I've got something to ask you," Jared said and the two of them exchanged a significant glance before Ian started nodded, all seriousness gone from the conversation.

"Sure. Wanda, I'll catch up with you in a few minutes, okay? Why don't you take a break and then we can continue," Ian suggested, kissing the side of my head and released his hold on me. As they started walking away from me I gathered a little courage and ran after them.

"Where do you guys keep disappearing to?" I asked and they stopped in their tracks. I saw Jared visibly sigh and murmured something about meeting up with Ian before taking off. Ian rotated on the spot until he was facing me and his expression nearly made me melt inside, but I remained strong; he was trying to woo me and I wasn't going to fall for it; I really wanted to know.

"We're not disappearing anywhere, Wanda," he tried to reassure me, but I just shook my head.

"Why are you keeping these secrets? I can handle whatever it is, I'm not as totally incapable of things as you seem to think that I am, you know," I said, getting frustrated that they were trying to deceive me like that and frankly, I was fed up.

"Wanda," Ian laughed once, purely out of disbelief that I was finally calling him on all of it and he took my face in his hands gently, pulling me closer to his warm body. "I don't think that you aren't capable of anything at all! Jared's just been wanting my opinion on something related to his wedding and I've been helping him out with it, that's all."

"And Kyle?" I asked, avoiding looking directly into Ian's eyes because I knew that they would be my undoing and I needed to remain firm with him if I wanted to know.

"Believe it or not, he needs Kyle's opinion as well," Ian half laughed and I looked at him with my eyebrows raised, not believing that at all.

"Nobody in their sane mind needs Kyle's opinion on anything to do with their relationship," I responded, biting my lip. His excuse seemed legitimate; minus the whole Kyle helping thing, but Kyle was always nosy like that and didn't like to be left out of people's business, so it wouldn't have surprised me if he was sneaking off just to know what was going on.

"Amen to that," Ian whispered, kissing my cheek and making me blush. "Okay?" I nodded reluctantly and he kissed the other cheek. "Good. I'll be back before you know it. Seriously though, sit down and relax for a minute."

"Fine," I relented and he let go of my cheeks to turn and start jogging off in the direction that Jared had disappeared in and I watched him until I could no longer see Ian's retreating back. I then decided to take Ian's advice and sat down on the ground by the ladder we were using to wait for him to return. Even though I didn't like taking a break, I didn't know what else that I could have done in that time.

Since I had no concept of time in the caves, I didn't know how long he had been gone but I was starting to get bored. I looked up and watched a few people walking by, but once they gazed down at me, I immediately turned my focus onto something else away from them. To my immense relief, Lily spotted me and came skipping over, but when I noticed that she had Paige and Andy with her I became a little wary of them. Paige was still okay towards me, but Andy had never been forgiving to me from the very start of my life in the caves.

"Hi Wanda!" Lily chirped as the group got closer to me and I smiled back, starting to stand up, but she plopped herself down on the ground anyways so I stayed right where I was.

"Hey Lily! Hi Paige," I replied, nodding towards Andy, who didn't respond and looked like he'd rather be anywhere else. I didn't blame him though; it was only his natural feelings that he was expressing and he had every right to.

"What are you doing sitting here all alone?" Lily inquired, giving me a questioning look. "Usually you're like attached to Ian at the hip."

"I know," I responded, shrugging my shoulders. "He left a little while ago to go and discuss something with Jared about the wedding or something like that. Jared's been pulling him away to talk about a lot of stuff; it kind of makes me believe that something is wrong."

"Mmmn, I don't think that anything is wrong," Paige piped up and I turned to face her as she was sitting on my other side. "It's probably just jitters or something. Jared's bound to be nervous, though he really doesn't have a need to be, you know? I mean, the hard part is over and she's already said yes. Unless he's done something completely horrendous they'll be fine."

"That's very true," I replied, nodding my head when I felt Lily's arms wrapped around the top of my shoulders and she hugged me tight.

"He'll be back soon, you know. There's nothing to worry about," she whispered and I frowned at her.

"How did you know that I was worried?" I asked, a little dumbfounded that she knew what I was thinking.

"You just had that look on your face. Anyways, we just wanted to let you know about what's happening tonight, because I didn't think that anyone had told you just yet," she continued on and I nodded as Lily slowly released her hold on me.

"No, I haven't heard a thing about what's going on," I said, looking between the pair of them before glancing at Andy, who wasn't even looking in our direction.

"Well, Jeb came and told us today that it's Mother's Day and we've decided to hold a little impromptu ceremony of sorts to sort of commemorate our mothers," Paige exclaimed and I nodded; it certainly sounded interesting. "We'll do it after dinner in the games room. Andy's been digging through our old supplies and has found enough candles for everyone, so we won't have to worry about lighting or anything either."

"That sounds great!" I said enthusiastically, and it did, I just wasn't too sure what a Mother's day was but I wasn't about to ask; I could find out later.

"Awesome, so we'll see you then?" Lily checked and I nodded in agreement; I would be there for them at least. "Perfect! Well, we've got to keep going and spreading the word, so we'll talk to you later!"

The three of them stood up and I got to my feet as well before they departed. I stared up the ladder contemplating whether or not I could finish the job that Ian had started way up there and I almost went on up, but then I decided at the last second that it would be way too dangerous, and we didn't need a casualty in the caves. Instead, I decided to help out by cleaning the lower mirrors that we were going to tackle the next day, as it didn't require someone to hold a ladder or anything. I grabbed the cloth and cleaning solution that Ian had been using and made my way over to the lowest ones that I could find. I covered the cloth with the solution, glad that I had decided on the more eco-friendly green stuff, as I couldn't stand the smell of the chemicals that were in the other stuff and tried to reach the mirror, but it was too high for me. I looked around, spotting an empty crate off to the side so I set my cloth down and brought it over; the extra boost that it gave me allowed me to get most of the low mirrors done by the time that Jeb called out that it was dinner time.

I was shocked that it was that time already, but a quick glance up at the light still filtering down through the holes in the ceiling confirmed the lateness of the day; it was nearly dusk and the sky was a reddish colour that nearly blended in with the red rock above my head. I began to slowly collect the things that I had been using and gathered them all up into the crate that I was using to stand on, leaving it just underneath the ladder so that we could pick up where we'd left off the next day. I turned around on the spot and watched as quite a few people walked through the main cavern and then down the hall towards the kitchens. I wanted most everyone to be in there before I entered so that I could grab my food and ignore their stares. I supposed that the real reason some people were a little resentful was because nobody had really been told the real story of what went down other than the people directly around me. In a way, they had a right to be wary of me.

I noticed someone waving in my direction so I turned my head from side to side to see if anyone was responding to them, but when no one else was around I realized that they had to be communicating with me. I had no idea who it was, but I began lightly jogging over to the person, not even breaking a sweat in the process despite the fact that they were on the complete other side of the room; all of my soccer practising with Ian that we had been doing was clearly paying off. Once I got closer, I broke out into a wide grin as I realized that it was Jamie who was standing there waiting for me.

"Hey Jamie! What are you doing here?" I greeted him, slowing my pace to stop right beside him.

"I was on my way to dinner and I wanted to make sure that you were coming, that's all," he replied. "So are you going to join us? I heard that Lucina was going to make her famous spaghetti!"

"Of course I'm coming down, I was just hanging around to see if Ian was going to come back or not, but I don't see him yet," I replied, looking around us one more time before I shrugged and Jamie held out his elbow for me to slip my arm through. I obliged and together we made our way up to the kitchen area.

"How come Lucina's spaghetti's so famous?" I asked Jamie as to my knowledge she had never made it whenever I was around, and I'd been in the caves for a significant amount of time.

"Well, she only really makes it when there's a raid or something, so I'm not sure if you've had it or not," Jamie explained and I shook my head. "It's really good! Although it never has any meat in it or anything like a real meat sauce, she makes it with those canned tomatoes, which she says aren't as good as fresh ones, but there's only so much we can do you know?"

"Sounds good," I commented, my mouth watering a tiny bit at the mention of her cooking; anything that Lucina made was really good and I was all of a sudden hungry as ever.

"Oh, and don't worry about Ian, he'll be there!" Jamie said, nodding his head and smiling at me. "There is no way that he or Jared would miss spaghetti night for the world, especially since they're home for once when she's making it. But I bet that he will be mad that he didn't get to walk into the mess hall with a pretty girl on his arm."

"Jamie!" I said while laughing and I knew that he was just teasing me. "Of course he will be." It was funny to see Jamie growing up so fast; the way that he talked and acted, he just wanted to be considered a part of the adults' group, but neither Melanie nor I wanted him to act more than the child he was. The time would come eventually when we'd have to accept that he was indeed a grown up, but none of us were ready for that time just yet.

Jamie and I talked and laughed about our days until we reached the kitchen and I immediately started looking around for Ian. I spotted him almost immediately, and just about at the same time that he saw me, for we both broke out into silly grins at about the same time. Ian rose from his seat beside Kyle as we got closer to him and wrapped me up in a giant hug.

"What was that for?" I asked as he gently set me back down on the ground. "Not that I'm complaining or anything."

"That was for being away from you for too long, and for leaving you to do the rest of the mirror work. I hope that you didn't scale that ladder though," he said with a stern look on his face and I rolled my eyes while shaking my head at him.

"I considered it for a minute," I admitted, shrugging my left shoulder. "But then I decided against it, seeing as how you probably wouldn't want to scrape me off of the dirt floor when I fell or something."

"Good," Ian said, kissing my forehead. "And just for the record, I don't want you to ever have to climb up that ladder; it's too rickety and I don't want to take that chance with you. You're too precious to me to risk that."

"Get a room!" Kyle hollered out from behind Ian and I immediately began to blush a deep shade of red. It was then that I noticed that the room was essentially silent and all eyes were on our little interaction. Ian swirled around at that point to give Kyle a piece of his mind and I closed my eyes to block out the other's stares.

"Well, now that Wanda and Jamie are here, let's eat!" Mel said enthusiastically, standing up out of her seat before reaching down to tug on Jared's arm. She also reached for Jamie's hand and pulled them all towards the front of the room where Lucina was serving the dishes up.

Once Ian finished with whatever he was saying to Kyle, he wrapped an arm around my waist and led me up to the little line behind Jamie to wait for our food. As he nuzzled his nose in my hair, I looked over at Brandt, who was glaring at us until I stared right back and he dropped his gaze to his food. I turned my head towards Ian's so that my lips were right beside his ear.

"Did you get everything sorted out?" I whispered and I felt Ian's head nod up and down before he pressed a small kiss to my neck. Luckily my hair covered what he was doing, but I still nudged his head up with my hand all the same.

"Yeah, we did for now. Jared's just getting nervous about everything, that's all," he whispered right back and we took a step forwards as the line moved ahead a spot.

"Paige doesn't know how he can be so nervous about everything," I said and he smirked.

"Oh yeah? Why is that?"

"She thinks that because Melanie's already said 'yes' to him that he's got nothing to worry about. There's no way that she will ditch him any time soon, she's wanted this with him for too long," I added the last part on, as I had known it from the time that I spent in her body.

"Well, all the same, I think that it's normal for any guy to get nervous as the date gets closer. You know, they don't want the girl to end up being a runaway bride or something," Ian said, shrugging his shoulders.

"I'm sorry, a runaway what?" I asked, frowning in confusion and Ian chuckles at my expression, taking his thumb and smoothing out the creases between my eyes.

"Runaway Bride was my mom's favourite movie. It was about a girl who would run from her fiancé's at the last possible second, basically. My mom would always cry whenever Julia Roberts ran out on Richard Gere at their wedding. And then again when they actually got married in the end," he added, looking far away and seeming to remember that time in his life.

"And I'm assuming that Richard Gere and Julia Roberts were actors or something?" I asked, trying to recall if I had ever learned anything about them, but I was drawing up a blank.

"Yeah, they were. My mom loved every movie that Julia did, so we had her entire blue-Ray collection in our living room and she would have 'chick-flick' days to herself where she'd sit with an entire bowl of popcorn and a box of tissues and watch as many as she could," Ian recalled, smiling in remembrance. "My mom really needed another girl in the family, really."

"I'm sure that she loved you both all the same though," I pointed out and Ian nodded as we took another step closer to the counter and I heard his stomach rumble a bit and he laughed a little embarrassed at the fact, but I simply shrugged.

"Yeah, she did. Probably loved me a lot more than my idiot brother though," Ian said a little louder and we were both shoved forwards by Kyle then and I laughed. I loved the camaraderie between the brothers when they weren't trying to rip each other's throats out about something. Together, Ian and I stumbled to the counter as Jamie had moved out of the way then.

"Two please," Ian said a little breathlessly to Lucina, who smiled and nodded at him before skipping her eyes over me entirely and fixing our plates. Ian reached over to the bin by his side and grabbed two buns out of it, ready to place them down on our plates.

Lucina placed the two plates on the counter in front of us and Ian put the bun down on the first plate before frowning down at the second plate that was in front of me and then glaring at Lucina. I looked down at them, not seeing what was clearly making him upset about something until I looked at the portion sizes; his was a bit bigger than normal as it usually was, but mine probably averaged out to a little less than half a cup. Just as he was about to open his mouth to argue with her, I took the bun out of his hand and scooped up my plate, along with cutlery for the two of us and walked out of the line, standing off to the side to wait for him. Ian gaped at me before he shook his head, grabbed his plate and made his way over to me. As he got nearer, I turned and started to head back to where Mel, Jared, Jamie and Sunny were seated.

On our way back, Ian stopped to say hi to Geoffrey, Travis, Ruth Ann and Violetta. He greeted them and they responded, but did not look in my direction at all throughout the short conversation that he had with them. I had tuned them out and wasn't paying attention at all when Ian nudged my side and I started listening again.

"Wanda would be a great help with that, I'm sure Violetta. She knows exactly where we keep that," Ian said and I had no clue what they were talking about, but I nodded all the same.

"It's okay," Violetta responded, keeping her eyes locked on Ian's so that they were away from me. "I'm sure that I can find it on my own."

"Nonsense! If you just went down with her after dinner, then..."

"No, I'll really be fine," she interrupted him harshly and I took that as my cue to tug him away and back to our table. I finally peeled him away from them and noticed the stares in our direction and I could feel them on my back the whole way to our seats. Ian sat down first and proceeded to take a fork from my hand and scoop some of his pasta onto my plate.

"What are you doing?" I asked, trying to push him away and stop it, but he was still stronger than I was and scooped a few more strands out.

"I don't know what the heck is up with that, but you definitely need more food than she gave you," he responded, shaking his head. "That was ridiculous! Do you always get small portions from her?"

"I'm not going to be able to eat that much, take it back," I replied, ignoring his question and moving my plate closer to his to put it back, but he just slid his out of my reach.

"Yes you can eat that," Mel piped up and I rolled my eyes at her.

"If you don't I'm sure that we could easily find someone else to help you out," Kyle added and I sighed, admitting defeat as I forked a bit of food and started chewing on it. I had to admit; it certainly was delicious and a welcome change from the normal boring pasta that we had every once in awhile.

"Why is everyone glaring at you?" Ian asked and I looked up at him before following his gaze to see Travis, John, Stanley and Carol whip their heads back down to their food at the sight of me spotting them. The same thing happened with a few other people and I just shrugged.

"Don't worry about it," I replied, touching his arm lightly.

"No, seriously though. What is up with that? I've noticed it for about the last month, but I thought that it was some petty little thing that a few people had going on. Now it seems to be the majority of the group," Jared added and I closed my eyes. I was really hoping that Ian would never notice them and it would all just disappear, but luck was never on my side.

"What do you mean a month?" Ian asked incredulously. "Why didn't anyone say anything to me? This is very silly if you ask me."

"Yeah, well," I said lamely before Ian pretty much growled and shoved his half-eaten plate aside at me. Luckily I caught it just before it smashed into mine and I poured the rest of my food onto it so that I could stack them on top of each other. Just as I was about to ask what was going on, the rocky table thumped as Ian stood on top of it facing the room of people and it was instantly silent.

"Hey! What the heck is going on here with Wanda?" he shouted out so that everyone could hear him and his voice echoed off of all the walls. "Why are most of you glaring at her behind her back? I don't get this; I thought that everything was fine."

"Maybe for you!" Maggie's voice shouted back at him and I groaned; this was going to turn into a fight, I just knew it. "The rest of us don't know what to believe, so _sorry_ for acting wary around her!"

"What do you mean you don't know what to believe, it's been like five months since that happened!" Ian replied, exasperated and I ran my hands through my hair looking at Mel for help, but she just shook her head.

"Who is it really in there?" Carol asked and most people murmured in agreement and then it all clicked; they weren't mad at me for what happened, per say, they were just scared about who was actually living with them for all that time.

"It's Wanda!" Ian said, looking down at me.

"How do we know that for sure?" Lacey asked, and I saw Jared visibly roll his eyes at her comment before he stood up on his seat between Jamie and Melanie.

"Did anyone explain to you what happened?" he inquired and the crowd answered 'no' for the most part. "Wanda?" he looked down at me and I shook my head; there was no way that I was getting up there to explain everything.

"Well shit," Jared swore and I heard Sunny audibly gasp at the language, but I only flinched a little bit. "Mel, will you help me explain it?"

"I will!" Jamie said enthusiastically, but we all answered no before he could get his hopes up even further.

Melanie agreed and stood up with Jared while Ian sat back down beside me and they began to tell the story about what had happened since I was taken to the point where they rescued me and I came back to the caves. The whole time, Ian held my hand and his thumb traced circles over my knuckles, but I was pretty sure that it was more for his sake than mine; I wasn't really nervous about anything. After they finished, I chanced a glance around and saw more than one sympathetic face looking at me and I knew that they were over it. A few, mainly Sharon, Maggie, Brandt and Andy, still showed some resentment, but I was sure that it would never change, no matter how long I lived with everyone down there.

When everything was cleared up, both with my situation and the dishes from the meal, we all began to walk down to the games room. Jamie and Mel ran ahead, excitedly racing each other to see who could get their first and Jared followed, but at a slower pace. We lost Sunny and Kyle somewhere in the crowd, but it didn't really matter; w would all end up in the same space. Ian didn't say much to me the whole way down there, but nothing much needed to be said between us and I didn't really want to talk when we were surrounded on all sides by people. At the entrance to the cave, we were handed a white candle stick by Doc, who smiled at us as we filed inside. Ian chose a spot for us to sit over by the door a little ways away from anyone else, so we were kind of on our own. Lily joined us, as did Kyle and Sunny eventually and I could spot Mel and Jared a few feet away in the darkness with Jamie close, but not too close to them.

As soon as everyone was situated in a spot, the candles started being lit until the entire cave was filled with the glowing light. It was kind of a magical look and the way that the light glowed off of the walls and the ceiling gave everything a bit of an eerie aura to it. I was a bit excited to see what would happen next. Doc's voice began to float through the space then, addressing everyone.

"As you all know, it's Mother's Day, so we thought that we would take the time to honour our mothers as many of us do not have them here with us today," he started off with a sombre tone. "It doesn't matter if our mothers were alive or not during the takeover, they still should be remembered in the best way possible."

Doc continued to speak, but I couldn't concentrate and I began to look over at the people around me. Some of them had their eyes closed, their heads bent down to the ground and I could see pain etched onto their faces. Others were listening to Doc speak, nodding their heads at what I was assuming was the right times. From where I was sitting, I could see that Heidi was crying. I instantly felt sick and stood up from where I was seated, running from the room as fast as I could while blowing out my candle at the same time.

I continued to run up the maze of the passageway that led to the room until I got to the moonlit main room that opened up in front of me. I stopped running then and leaned against the wall beside the entrance, sliding down the whole way to the ground until I was crouched there. I dropped the candle, letting it roll away from me as I thought about what I had just witnessed; they were essentially mourning in there. The majority of the inhabitants of the cave didn't have their mothers with them, just the memories from before everything happened and it cut me to the core knowing that. I heard footsteps rapidly coming closer to me and I tried to stay as quiet as possible so that they wouldn't notice me there and continue on their way. Unfortunately, I didn't have much luck as they slowed once the person entered the main plaza.

"There you are, Wanda!" Ian said breathlessly and I looked up to see him walk around to my right side and sit down beside me. "Care to explain what that was about?"

"I couldn't stay," I croaked out, looking up at him. "When Lily mentioned the Mother's Day thing to me, I didn't know what it was, so I went mainly out of curiosity. I didn't think that it would be like a massive funeral for everyone's mothers."

"It wasn't though; it was just a time to remember our mothers as they were before..."

"Before everything happened, right?" I interrupted and he nodded.

"Well, yeah. Nobody can remember a time before that, unless they were there when their moms were taken or something. And nobody wants to replay that in their heads, trust me," Ian said gently. "But why couldn't you stay?"

"Don't you see? The reason that you're not all with your mothers is because of me!" I said to him, trying to make him get my point. "If we hadn't invaded this planet and done everything then..."

I stopped speaking when Ian clamped a hand down over my mouth, effectively stopping all speech from me. He looked down at me, biting his lip and I knew he was trying to figure out how best to respond to that, but he didn't need to; it was the truth after all.

"First of all, _you_ specifically had nothing to do with what happened to our moms; you weren't even on the planet when it happened to most of us. And second, it was not your fault. I don't know how many times I have to say that to you until you understand, but I will keep doing it as much as I have to, Wanda," Ian said and I crawled closer to him.

"I'm sorry," I apologized. "It's a wonder that I was even invited to that; you all should hate me for everything..."

"Stop!" Ian breathed, shaking his head. "You are trying to blame yourself, but the truth is that you had no hand in anything. You can't help who you are, Wanda. And I could never hate you, because I love you too much."

His words seemed to hang in the air between us as I let them sink in and when it did a huge smile spread across my face. He really had just said what I had been waiting for him to say for a very long time.

"Shoot," he said, running a hand through his hair as I looked up at him and he looked a little mad at himself. "I'm sorry Wanda, I didn't mean for it to be said like that; I wanted to make it special and everything, not just blurt it out like that."

"I don't care," I told him honestly, sitting up a little higher. "I've just been waiting so long to hear you say that."

"really?" Ian asked and I could see a small smile forming on his lips as I nodded.

"Really, really," I replied before tilting my head up and kissing him lightly. "And just for the record, I love you too."

"You'd better," Ian teased before pressing his lips to mine once again and I giggled. "In all seriousness though, you had every right to be there you know. You had a mother too, did you not?"

"Well, yes I did, but I never knew her. I only know the information that gets passed down from her, not actually anything about her like you guys all do," I replied, shrugging and folding myself into his side. We sat there and cuddled for a few minutes and I leaned my head on to Ian's shoulder as his left arm wrapped around me.

"You want to hear about my Mom then?" he offered and I shrugged.

"If you want to tell me about her, I'd love to," I replied. "But only if you feel like it. I don't want you to think that you're obligated to tell me or anything."

"Relax, love," Ian said, leaning his head on top of mine. "It's totally fine."

"Well in that case," I teased and I felt him shake with silent laughter before he composed himself.

"Well, aside from my mom really loving all things Julia Roberts, she also really loved to come and support us whenever we play sports and stuff. She was the one who would yell and scream and cheer the loudest at my soccer games, and was never intimidated by the other parents around her who wanted her to be quiet. If nothing else, she was very passionate about what we did," Ian started and I smiled, trying to picture it in my mind.

"You played soccer?" I asked and he chuckled a bit.

"Course I did, how do you think that I got so good?" Ian replied and it was my turn to giggle there.

"No idea."

"It was from years of training both with my team and with Mom and Kyle," Ian explained and I nodded. We spent the whole rest of the time that everyone was in their little mass talking about Ian's mom and I felt just a little bit closer to him than I had ever felt since he'd opened up so much to me in one single night.

**A/N: Hope everyone enjoyed that one!  
I will reply to reviews later... I'm overtired and I need my sleep right now, but I will get to them tomorrow!**

'**Till next Sunday!  
Review : )**

**Oh! And I promise that I will update Live and Let Die in the next two days... it's been seriously neglected and I'm not sure why!**


	5. You're Making Such a Fool of Me

**Sorry! Sorry sorry! I actually completely forgot! I only had half of it written when I realized that today was Monday! Chapter six will be up Sunday as usual though!**

**Thanks to emotionalpoemgirl, piccolover22, stefffie, hanaharoo, DracoMalfoy4Ever, PachO'shea, HockeeChica, jediahsokaroxx, sapphirenight12, O'SheaFan and Separate Entity for your awesome reviews!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own The Host or any of its characters; they belong to the lovely Stephenie Meyer. I do however, own the plot.**

**Kyle POV**

I was down in Doc's room, resting on top of one of the cots there while we talked about the more recent developments with the creatures that we had been seeing a lot more of when we heard footsteps pounding hard on the ground coming from the hall.

"I just don't know what to say, Kyle," Doc said from the chair behind his desk, shaking his head wearily. "I guess when the time comes we'll do something about it, but until then we have no options."

"There are always options," I replied lazily, gazing at the door and awaiting the arrival of whoever was pounding down towards us. Not even a minute later Mel's little brown head came bounding into the room.

"Do you mind?" I asked and she turned around on the spot to locate me before glaring at me. I simply smiled, giving her a hard time was something that I liked to do, and I just couldn't help myself sometimes.

"No Kyle, I don't mind at all. I was actually sent here to get your lazy ass up because Jeb says that it's time," Mel answered before turning to face Doc who was looking rather intently at her. "Jeb says that you can come along if you'd like, or you can stay back and get ready. We still don't know if they're human or souls, so you might want to prep yourself in case there are any extractions that need being done."

"I think that I'll stay back," Doc responded with a slight smile on his face and that usual gleam in his eye when something interesting was about to go down. He immediately stood up from behind his desk and turned to open the cupboards, speaking to himself as he pulled various canisters and boxes out and plopped them down on the top of his desk.

"You coming?" Melanie asked, looking pointedly at me and where I was laying down. I had propped up the head part of the cot a little bit and had propped up my left foot, resting the ankle of my left foot on the raised knee. All I needed was a cowboy hat and a piece of wheat and I would have fit right into an old western film. I smirked at Melanie and climbed down off of the bed to walk right over beside her and stop.

"Course I am, lead the way," I instructed her, motioning for her to go first out of there to show me where to go.

"Why do you have to be like that?" she asked after we'd gotten started on our little journey.

"Like what?" I asked, genuinely confused about what she was implying.

"Like you're so much better than everyone all the time."

"Hell, I don't have to be like that, I just choose to be," I shrugged, shoving my hands down in to my front pockets.

"It doesn't look good on you. And I know what you're like when you are nice to people it's awesome. Take Sunny, you're really good to her and I know that you've cleaned up a bit, so to say when it comes to your behaviour around her, but do you just like save it up for me or something?" Melanie countered and although I knew that she was right, I didn't want to admit it; not to her face.

"Nah, I reserve it for you and Ian," I teased, ruffling her hair and she jogged ahead of me a little bit, scowling in the process. "And Wanda."

"But even towards her you've changed, you know," Melanie countered and I nodded.

"Let's just say that I like giving you a hard time," I finally answered her original question and noticed a slight frown on her face. "But tell me, would you really like it if I were to change that now after all this time of being like that to you?"

"I think that it would be weird as hell."

"Then why did you ask?" I was puzzled then. If she didn't want me to change for her, what the hell was the point of the whole conversation.

"Just wanted to know," Melanie sang out before laughing. "I really had you thinking there for a minute, didn't I?"

"Please," I scoffed. "Like I would do any real thinking about things that you would ask me to do."

"Ha ha," Melanie faked and I couldn't help but to snort at her pathetic little sarcastic laugh. "But in all seriousness, do you know what's going on with your brother?"

"When have I ever known what is going on with him?" I countered, rolling my shoulders back to crack my spine a little. It was a reflex motion that Sunny didn't like but I'd been doing it since as long as I could remember, so it had stuck.

"Touché," Melanie said sarcastically. "But I mean, with regards to him proposing and stuff. He was all for talking to you about it prior to the whole mess of a situation and everything, but I have a feeling that he's backed off significantly about it."

I shrugged. "If you're so worried about it, why don't you ask him the tough stuff? I have no clue what he is or isn't planning."

"Oh I will ask him, but I just wanted to see if you had any knowledge or information on the subject so that I had something to work with."

"You're such a meddler," I told her, shaking my head a little bit as we walked out of the tunnel and into the main plaza. Instead of going towards the crevice that would lead us to the entrance up top, Melanie veered to the right so quickly that I nearly didn't see her and had to run to catch up.

"Oi!" I called out, closing in on her as she went down the passage that led to the underground games room. "Where do you think that you're going? The entrance is the complete other way!"

"I'm fully aware of that Kyle. What I'm not aware of is when you turned British with an expression like that. Or is it Australian?" she mused wandering into the darkness, but I just shook my head. "You know, the 'oi!'?"

"Yes I know that saying, and I think that it's Australian, for the record," I answered, racking my brains to think of the origin of the saying.

"Ah, that's right!" Melanie cried suddenly, startling me in the process as her voice echoed through the small space. "Auzzie! Auzzie! Auzzie!"

"Must we?" I asked, very much annoyed that she was taking me on some little detour when all I really wanted to do was get out there and start this mission and find out who those people were out there.

"Oi oi oi," I reacted to her little cheer with very little enthusiasm in my voice, which I knew would tick her off, thus the reason why I did it. "Care to tell me why we're going down here and not up to where Jeb is surely waiting for us?"

"Because we need to get Ian, of course. And don't worry, Jeb has Brandt getting at the stupid macho weapons that you guys clearly need to hold to make yourselves seem intimidating when you go out there so they'll be ready by the time we are."

"You're coming out there with us?" I inquired, not realizing that she would have been before then. I just didn't think that Jared would have let her go out on an occasion like that.

"You bet I am. Though I doubt that I'll be nearly as threatening as the rest of you, I swear that you've got that look down pat or something because you sure scared the shit out of Wanda and I," Melanie responded as I noticed the caves opening up before us.

"That was the whole purpose of that, to make a clear statement," I pointed out and saw her head bob in response to that. She entered the low room just before I did and I could hear Ian calling out to Wanda as she kicked the ball towards him.

I elected to let her do all the talking while I stood back so that we could get out of there as fast as we could. Once Ian got a glimpse of me loitering by the door he'd realize that it was serious and that we needed to boot it. Plus, I didn't want to be there when Wanda inevitably argued about what was going on that she was being left out of. Ian had told us that she was growing more and more suspicious and I wasn't sure why he hadn't just outright informed her of what was going on; hell, I had even broken down and let Sunny in on what was going on. She wasn't impressed by any means, but she had kept quiet and for that I was thankful of. Then again, she kind of closed herself off to me and didn't let me know what she was thinking, so that part of it wasn't so good.

In the dim lighting I was able to clearly make out the perplexed look on Wanda's face and felt slightly bad that he still hadn't told her anything, but that was his decision to make, not mine. I decided to actually be patient for once in my life and wait until we had him with us before going up top, but it wasn't easy standing there. I was itching to get this over with and to feel the shape of the machete in my palm once again. That was my weapon of choice for the excursions and everyone knew better than to take it away from me; I couldn't wait to hold it once more.

**Ian POV**

"Is that really all you've got?" I called out to Wanda, teasing her as I jogged over to the ball that stopped about five feet in front of me and threw it back in her direction. "I know that you can do way better than that!"

"Hush up, you!" she shouted back and I laughed in response, trotting backwards towards my makeshift net. I bent down at the waist, placing my hands flat on my knees as Wanda retrieved the ball and placed it down on the dirt, lining up her shot at the same time.

I couldn't help but to watch Wanda while she got herself ready and smiled when I remembered again that she was indeed mine and she had admitted that she loved me, yet again. We had said it months ago, and I was trying to do it right this time around, by those three words had just sort of escaped my mouth in a bit of word vomit when I wasn't expecting it. Wanda had tried to assure me that she was just happy that we had finally announced our love for each other, but I still mentally kicked myself for that, making the resolution that the next thing I did for her would certainly make up for it.

"Are you ready?" Wanda asked and I nodded at her with a bit of an exaggerated motion so that she could see it in the dim light. I then stood there in the same position as she backed up three steps like I'd taught her and then got ready to kick.

It almost happened in slow motion, as most things like that do, as I watched her run forwards two steps and then strike her leg out against the ball and I stood up at the same time. As I moved to block it, I must have misjudged the amount of space that I had and I saw the ball hurtling through the air towards me, but I couldn't stop it in time before it made contact with my face.

"Ian!" Wanda screamed out as I doubled over in pain, covering my face with my hands as I literally saw stars behind my eyes. It had been a lot of years since I had been smacked in the face with a soccer ball and I had almost forgotten what it felt like.

"Are you okay? I'm so sorry, I didn't think that anything like that would happen, Ian. I'm so, so sorry," Wanda said all of that in one breath and I could see her shoes in my eyesight once I'd finally opened them up again.

She tentatively placed a hand on my back as I was still doubled over, trying to figure out if anything was broken or not. I pulled my hands away from my face, noticing the blood on them, but I quickly covered my nose up again so that it didn't freak her out or anything, but she still spotted it.

"Oh my gosh Ian! You're bleeding like crazy!" Wanda tried to pull my head up, but I resisted, touching my nose all over, realizing that it wasn't broken at all, since nothing moved and I was even able to give it a few good squeezes just to make sure.

"It's okay, Wanda. It's not like it hasn't happened before anyways, but you know. Nothing's broken, honey," I tried to reassure her, standing up a bit straighter to offer her a small smile to try and calm her down as I could see that she was freaking out slightly.

"Hey, don't worry about it," I told her, reaching out to touch her shoulder and smile a little more. "Okay? I'm fine. Stuff like that used to happen to me all the time; that was one of the hazards of playing on the opposite team of Kyle."

"But you're still bleeding," she whispered, looking a little white, so I removed my hand and looked around for something to wipe it on, settling for the hem of my shirt. "I can get you a towel or something."

"It's good. I don't really like this shirt anyways," I shrugged, holding the hem up to my nose and tilting my head forwards again to try and stop it. "Wanda, please don't feel bad, I can feel it stopping right now anyways."

"Are you sure that it's not broken?" I cut my eyes right over to her and Wanda honestly looked like she was going to burst out into tears.

"Come here," I coaxed her, tugging her shoulder gently until she took a few tentative steps forwards until I had her pressed up against my side with my arm wrapped around her slight form. I felt her shudder a few times before her slender arms enclosed around my middle and she finally relaxed a tiny bit.

"I checked, and I know for sure that it's not broken. It was just a simple ball to the face which resulted in a little nosebleed, Wanda. It has been awhile since I've bled, so it was probably about time anyways," I tried to joke, but she didn't respond to it at all. "Wanda, it's really okay? See? The blood has stopped."

I saw Wanda's eyes on me as she looked up just to make sure herself that I was indeed okay before I felt, rather than heard, her sigh in relief. Wanda then stood up on her tip-toes and pressed a gentle kiss to my cheek, but I was having none of that. When her soft lips left my stubbly cheek, I turned my head ever so slightly to make our lips connect; kissing her properly and she did nothing to stop me, which only seemed to empower me some more. Eventually, she stepped back down to her normal height, effectively breaking apart our kiss, but in my eyes it was perfect all the same.

"You ready to go again?" I challenged Wanda, giving her my slight smirk and waggling my eyebrows a bit, but her face clouded over and she instantly looked concerned about something.

"Are you sure? I mean, don't you want to take a break or something? I would feel bad if I hit you like that again," she said, twisting her fingers together, which indicated that she was nervous about it.

"Wanda," I said softly, stepping closer and cupping her cheeks with my hands. "I promise that nothing else will happen. I was just a little zoned out about something, I suppose, I don't know. But I do know that I would rather have you hitting me in the face than the opposite. I'd just feel absolutely horrible it you were the one bleeding into your shirt."

"And how do you think that I feel right now?" she countered and I pecked her nose.

"Please don't worry about it; I've had worse done to me in my life," I told her, alluding to the time when Jared had punched me square on in the face way back when she and Mel had first come to the caves. I could tell that she knew what I had meant by the look of disgust on her face and I couldn't help but to chuckle and kiss her lips once more before releasing her and jogging back to my net.

Wanda hesitated for a few minutes before slowly turning and walking back over to where I'd kicked the ball back out too, carefully measuring her steps again. She kicked the ball at me a few times and once I'd saved about five she let her guard down some more and started to get a little more aggressive. Since I'd been giving her soccer lessons, she'd improved a lot, but I'd noticed that it was sort of becoming a way for her to let up some pent-up emotions that she had inside of her, and I wasn't too sure how I felt about that. It appeared as though instead of talking to me about whatever was going on, she was just taking it out on the soccer ball. I made it a point to confront her about it later, once I saw her aim a particularly hard kick at the net.

"How about a little one-on-one?" I shouted to Wanda; stopping the ball with my foot and the picking it up to walk over to her with it.

"Sure. You think that you're up for it though?" Wanda teased and I reached out to ruffle her hair up, but she was quicker and ducked under my hand just in time.

"Absolutely!" I placed the ball down on the ground and turned around, checking over my shoulder to make sure that she was doing the same thing, and she was, so I counted out my five steps. I spun around and saw that Wanda was already smiling at me, ready to go.

"One, two, three!" Wanda cried out and we both took off running at the same time; I narrowly beat her to the ball, snagging it away from her and tearing off down the field.

She was faster than I thought though, as she was nearly at my elbow in seconds, trying desperately to kick the ball out from between my feet, but my years of soccer practises were coming back to me; all the 'fast feet' drills and stuff, so she was having a hard time. We ended up running all the way down to her net and she never got the ball away from me, so I scored the first goal.

"First one to five?" I shouted out, making my way back up the field before she tore by me with the ball.

"Ten!" Wanda called back and I jogged after her to center field once more.

"Wanda, I don't want to tire you out or anything," I said, trying to reason with her, but then I realized that if it was as easy as my first goal, we'd be done pretty quickly anyways.

"Don't worry, you won't wear me out," Wanda replied, winking at me before shouting "Three!" and sprinting at the ball, stealing it away from me so that I had to chase her down.

A little while later, we were both tied at four goals each and were doubled over, panting at center field with the ball sitting on the ground in front of us. I thought that it seemed to be taunting us, since neither Wanda nor I made the move to run for it like we had in the beginning of our little game. After I'd scored my third goal, she had agreed to just go until five and I bet that she was very glad that she had; I was wiped and I could tell that she was too. My shirt was soaked right through with blood and sweat, all I needed was the tears to complete the look; but I didn't want to take it off just yet. Wanda stood up and pulled her sweaty hair back into a ponytail again, but I thought that she looked magnificent as she always did.

"I'm ready," she panted out. "Let's get this over with. One, two, three."

I didn't even care that we weren't the five paces apart like we were supposed to be, but I found my last bit of reserved energy and started running towards the ball on the dirt, trying to end the game as quickly as possible so that we could clean up. I beat Wanda to the ball and started carrying it down the field when all of a sudden she came out of nowhere and slid in from beside me, leg extended to effectively get the ball away from me, and it took all that I had not to fall over her in the process. Wanda jumped up right away though and took the ball back down the field as I chased after her as best as I could. In the end, she was faster though, and ended up scoring the winning goal, jumping up and down and cheering for herself while laughing at the same time.

I made my way down to where she was a as she jumped up in mid air I caught her waist and held on, but the force of gravity knocked us both to the ground, where she landed on top of me. I laughed out, wrapping my arms around her tightly as I could feel her squirming around to try and see if I was okay.

"What is going on here?" I heard Mel's voice echo through the cave over the sounds of our heavy breathing so I looked in the direction of where it had come from to see her walking over towards us.

"We were celebrating Wanda's win in our little soccer game," I explained, releasing my hold on her because I knew that she would be embarrassed with Mel getting closer to us. As I had expected, she jumped up almost right away to stand beside the other girl while I took my time getting to my feet.

"Did she win on her own, or did you let her, O'Shea?" Mel asked, giving me a look and I shrugged.

"It was fair," I replied, smiling at Wanda who positively beamed. It was the truth though, she beat me fair and square.

"Well, I'm glad that your little game is done, but I need to speak to you, Ian. Kyle's gonna come with us too," Melanie explained, giving me a significant look and I nodded in understanding. The only reason that she and Kyle would have to find me together would be to go out and investigate the people that were out there. We knew that they were indeed human, but whether they were souls or not was still a mystery to us.

"Okay, I'll be right there," I told her, but she shook her head.

"Now," Melanie said a bit harshly and I rolled my eyes.

"Fine, now," I replied and she nodded once, clearly liking my answer. "Wanda, I'll see you in a little bit, okay?"

"Does this have anything to do with the wedding?" Wanda asked and we both began to nod at once; she was still in the dark about everything, but I had decided to come clean once we'd figured out if they were human or not. There could be a safety issue with her, so she needed to be informed by then, at the very least.

"Fine, have fun," she said a bit dejectedly, but I stepped closer to her to kiss her head and she gave me a small smiled. "I'll see you later then."

"Very soon," I promised. "I love you."

"Love you too," Wanda chirped and I couldn't help but to chuckle at her enthusiasm at saying those words out loud; truth be told they made my heart burst a little every time I heard her say them as well.

I followed Melanie out of the room, leaving the small lantern that was there with Wanda because she was by herself. I felt another presence behind me and turned to make out the outline of Kyle's body following us as well and I nodded to myself. When we were far enough away that I was sure that Wanda wouldn't hear, I spoke to them.

"So is it time?" I asked quietly, still unsure of whether she might pick up the slightest echo or not.

"Apparently," Kyle quipped from behind me, not bothering to keep his voice down, but I decided that it didn't matter anyways as we were entering the main plaza.

"Yeah, well. Jeb just told me to get you two so I went to Kyle first cause he was with Doc, and then you and.... what the hell happened to you?" Melanie asked, interrupting herself once she'd turned around and gotten a good look at my shirt. I took the opportunity then to have a gander at it myself and wasn't surprised that she'd freaked out; it looked like I'd been through the war or something.

"Wanda got me in the face with a ball," I shrugged. "I think that it'll make me look more menacing though. It's quite badass if I do say so myself."

"Psha!" Kyle snorted as he walked up beside me, checking out my shirt. I flexed my muscles a bit at him and he shook his head, rolling his eyes. "Please, Ian. You couldn't look badass even if you tried your hardest."

We bantered all the way up to the entranceway where Jeb proceeded to gather everyone around so that we could wait for Brandt and someone else to join us. In the back of my mind though, I knew that it was so wrong to have kept Wanda in the dark for so long and I could only hope that she wasn't going to hate me for it.

**Wanda POV**

I waited around for a few minutes after Ian, Mel and apparently Kyle had left, cleaning up a little bit so that I could follow behind them to see what was going on. I carried the lantern a few steps before turning it off so that it didn't alert them to my presence behind them, and thankfully they didn't notice the light at all. I could hear them talking about something, but it was hard to hear as we neared the main plaza. I stayed in the shadow of the tube and watched the two brothers interact while Melanie looked horrified, probably at his shirt. They headed towards the entrance tunnel and I followed them once again.

I really didn't believe the lie that Ian kept feeding me about the wedding; if it was so important that Mel needed to come and get them, it should have been me; I was the maid of honour after all. It didn't seem right that the person who was supposed to be her right hand girl was being shafted time after time.

It was time that I got to the bottom of everything, I was tired of being left in the dark and I had more of a voice than I thought that I did. If he didn't tell me what was going on, then I was going to find out one way or another.

**A/N: So Wanda's getting bolder :P**

**Anywhoo. Did anybody watch the finale of the Vampire Diaries last week? IN-Tense.  
Ummm I don't have much more to say! Oh, except sorry!**

**Review : )**


	6. Expeditions

**Hey there! Happy Victoria Day long weekend to everyone celebrating in Canada! Can't wait for my day off tomorrow!**

**Thanks to mizDevine, aleex9530, piccolover22, twihardhannah, DracoMalfoy4Ever, hanaharoo, PachO'shea, 123-Markham-123, emotionalpoemgirl, Separate Entity, HockeeChica, ladaane, jediahsokaroxx, ShadowOfTheDay818 and O'SheaFan for your wonderful reviews!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own The Host or any of its characters; they belong to the lovely Stephenie Meyer. I do however, own the plot. Lyrics used are property of Rodger and Hammerstein's The Sound of Music.**

**Wanda POV**

I managed to follow them all the way up to the entranceway, where I peered around the corner and saw a whole group of people just standing around there. I heard more footsteps coming from somewhere behind me and I managed to press myself into a small crevice in the rocky wall so that they would not see me on their way past. Two men walked by me and I could see in the dim light that their arms were loaded with something, but they rushed by me too quickly for me to make out what they were.

As soon as they had gone by, I stepped back out into the passageway so that I could watch the group and see what was going to happen with them.

"Did you get them all?" Jeb asked, his voice clearly ringing out through the narrow space.

"Course we did," Brandt responded and I could see the bodies moving around, passing something to each other.

"I get dibs on the machete!" Kyle called out and watched as the big blade was given to a person; I could see it shine in the fading light streaming from the entrance.

"Hurry up, I want to get this over with; the anticipation is killing me!" Jared said and I frowned. He sounded really excited about whatever was about to happen and I was still no closer to knowing what exactly the little gathering was all about. I had my guesses, but I could never really be sure with no information given to me; I was still no closer to knowing anything.

"I really don't like this, Jared," Mel told I was assuming Jared, but I could never be really sure given my hiding place and all. "I'm not really comfortable with holding a knife like this."

"Take a club then," Brandt suggested and I saw two items being exchanged.

"It doesn't really matter what you carry, as long as you look threatening enough to them," Maggie piped up and I began to put the pieces together. "Ian always carries a stupid club, but all he has to do is stand up with it in his hands and he looks menacing. Here, Ian."

I staggered back a few feet at the knowledge that Ian was fully participating in whatever they seemed to be planning, and that he was not only in on what was happening, but he hadn't bothered to tell me at all. It stung to know that he was clearly keeping something big from me, and I only knew that it was significant because they had weapons at their disposal as well. I really hoped with all of my heart that they weren't going to go out into the desert because I didn't ever want Ian going out there, especially without Sunny or I to be there to at least attempt to protect them, should something happen.

"Okay, so the plan is that we are going to get out there and talk to these people to see what's up. Ian, Jared, Kyle and Brandt, you guys can lead us and create a front for when we first approach them; threaten them a little bit and see if they are souls or not," Jeb instructed everyone and I began shaking my head adamantly, though no one could see me from where I was hiding away from them.

"Why do they have to go first?" Mel asked and I strained my ears as best as I could to hear the answer.

"I thought that I made that clear; they are to make like a wall to intimidate the people out there. They can be the ones who frighten, or use force against them if they have weapons too," Jeb said matter-of-factly, but I still didn't agree with any of it.

"Don't worry, I've got my knife so they won't be getting too far with us around," Kyle told everyone, and I could tell by the sound of his voice that he was smirking.

"And what if they've got more powerful weapons?" she countered and I saw her moving figure put her hands on her hips to try and stand up to Kyle. The club remained clenched in her fist the whole time.

"Well, we're tough, we can handle it ourselves if they've got guns. We know how to talk them down or weasel our way out of situations, you know," Jared replied, but my heart leapt up into my throat at the mention of other people having guns.

_No!_

"Nooooo! No, no, no, no!" I was up and running towards them the instant that I figured out they were indeed going out and risking their lives for something. I didn't know what exactly they were investigating, but I could only imagine that it was humans or something; who else would have guns at their disposal. I couldn't have them probing around if there was a chance that someone could be seriously hurt.

They all turned around at the commotion that I made, but I only had eyes for Ian's blue ones as I ran straight towards him, not stopping until I collided with his solid form; angry, frustrated and overall confused about everything that I had discovered.

**Ian POV**

A voice rang out through the rocky space and I turned to see what was going on. To my utter shock and surprise, Wanda came barrelling from the tube directly towards me. I managed to drop the piece of wood that I had been holding, casting it away to the side as she nearly ploughed right into me, but I held out my hands and managed to catch her arms to stop her.

"Wanda! Wanda, I don't understand. How did you find us here?" I asked, looking down at her wildly while trying to figure everything out; we had left her down in the games room and she was supposed to go straight to our room to wait or something.

"What is going on?" she asked with a hard voice and I could see tears forming in her eyes; they were a bit red and glassy which was always a good indicator. "I want to know what has been happening that is so important that you have to leave me out of, Ian."

"Can he tell you later, Wanda? We kind of have to go and do something. It won't take too long," Jeb tried to reason with her but she was already shaking her head before he'd even finished his first sentence.

"No. I need to know right now; this has gone on long enough."

"Wanda honey, I promise to tell you everything as soon as we are done. You can even wait right here for us if you'd like. We really won't be long," I said while bringing my hands up to cup her cheeks but Wanda pulled her head back away from me before I could even make contact with her skin. It hurt to see her pull away like that, even though it wasn't anything big or anything, but then I supposed that she was feeling even more hurt than that by then.

"If you won't tell me, then I'll just have to go with you wherever you are going to find out for myself," Wanda's voice was shaking; I knew that she really didn't want to go through with her little threat, but she would if none of us relented to tell her.

"Wanda, we just want to go out and bring back some people, just like we did when you and Mel came to us. We will offer them a place to stay if they want it, but overall we want to see if they are human or not," I half-explained and I could see her literally miles away, thinking about what I had told her.

"I know that there is way more to that story, but you _will_ tell me after we get back," she instructed me, pressing her pointer finger into my chest to make her point and I nodded before her words sunk in.

"Wait. You can't come out with us," Jared butted in then as I realized she had used 'we' in there.

"Oh yeah? And why not?" Wanda challenged him and I knew that she was quite upset by everything; rightfully so though. It was technically my fault that she had been pushed to probably spying on us to learn something. I should have told her sooner; much sooner.

"Because there aren't enough weapons," he said quite lamely and Wanda laughed at him.

"I'm coming out with you guys. I obviously am not as invested in this little expedition as you all are, but really? You shouldn't have even thought about going out to these people without taking Sunny or I. What if they're rogue souls like me, but they have guns at their disposal? I could talk them down if we need to," Wanda explained and I knew that she was right.

"We didn't want either one of you to come out with us for the opposite of what you just outlined," Jeb finally spoke up then. "We have managed a lot longer than you have known with me and a group going out to greet new people, not knowing if they were souls or not. The risk is always there, we just have to be careful."

"You should think of the opposite of that, Wanda," Melanie added. "What if they are humans and then freak out at the prospect of us not only showing up and practically bombarding them, but then having a soul with them? You know how freaked out these people might be, Wanda."

"I know, but I still want to go," Wanda replied quietly and I could hear Maggie very audibly sighing from somewhere on my left but I chose to ignore her.

She and Brandt wouldn't be happy about her wanting to join us, but I knew Wanda well enough to know that she was dead set on this just to prove a point to everyone. Wanda had been becoming more and more independent, wanting to do more of her own things just to show that she wasn't the same scared little girl who had came to us and I was glad for that, but at the same time it scared me.

"Fine, she comes. But Ian," Jeb relented and it was followed by some groans from the aforementioned people who didn't like the idea. "She's your responsibility."

"Yes Jeb," I replied, stepping away from Wanda to pick up my wooden club from the floor and offering it to Wanda. I watched as she made a small face at the plank and I knew that she would never use it even if her life absolutely depended on it; just holding the weapon was going against every fibre of her genetic make-up, both human and soul.

"It's okay," I tried to coax her into holding onto it, but Wanda simply shook her head and looked up at me.

"I'm not holding that thing at all, Ian. You'd have to be crazy to think that I would," Wanda said simply and I nodded; it was a fair response after all.

"You'll just have to stick close to me then so that I can protect you," I replied and I swore that Wanda rolled her eyes at me, but before I could look again to make sure she was turned the other way.

"Ready? Let's go!" Jeb called to us and I watched as Kyle, Jared and Brandt walked to the front of the group with Maggie, Melanie and Jeb following close behind them. I waited until Aaron walked ahead of us before I nodded to Wanda to walk as well.

"Why do we have to walk at the back of the group? I thought that you were supposed to be in the front with the other boys?" Wanda whispered to me as we took a step out into the fresh air. Being outside always made me feel good, no matter what the circumstance was. I took in a deep breath as I looked around at the darkened landscape before answering Wanda.

"Because Jeb told me that I had to keep track of you. There is no way that I can do that while I'm at the front with the others and you're behind me somewhere. I can't guarantee what Maggie may or may not do to you with my back turned," I explained in a hushed tone, shrugging my shoulders. "Besides, those three are way more scary looking than I am, and I always hate being at the front anyways."

"How far out do we have to walk to?" she asked, looking around at the desolate terrain as we marched on in our little flying V of sorts.

"It's quite a ways out. These people didn't really come close to the caves at all," I informed her, watching Jeb's feet as he expertly strolled across the desert, dodging little rocks and crevices with ease; half of which I still managed to trip over, even though I saw him go around them.

"So there's plenty of time for you to explain then," Wanda told me and I was slightly taken back by her boldness, but I also knew that she was completely right.

"I thought that we were going to wait until after," I pointed out, trying to buy myself a little more time, even though I knew that it was useless. Wanda didn't even reply to that, she simply jogged a little ahead of me, turned around and began walking backwards while giving me 'the look' so that I would just tell her anyways.

"Where should I start?" I mused to myself, rubbing a hand over my entire face and when I did that I noticed that there was a large amount of stubble growing on my jaw; I'd have to rectify that as soon as we got back to the caves.

"How about at the very beginning?" Wanda offered and I nodded, opening my eyes up and grabbing onto her hand to pull her back beside me; watching Wanda walk backwards on the uneven ground was making me quite nervous that something was going to happen to her. The last thing that we needed was a twisted ankle or something and have her sit out of everything; she would not enjoy that at all.

"That's a very good place to start," I commented, smirking to myself as I recognized the dialogue we were having was from something very familiar, but I didn't remember how the rest of the tune went.

"When you read, you begin with A-B-C!" I heard Melanie's voice float back towards us and I couldn't help but to chuckle out loud; she seemed to know exactly what I was thinking about. I scoured my brain for a moment to think of what came next and it was literally like a light bulb went off when I finally remembered.

"When you sing, you begin with do-re-mi!" I replied quietly, trying not to bring too much unnecessary attention to ourselves and not alert these people that we were indeed coming towards them, but it was just too much to resist.

"Do-re-mi, do-re-mi. The first three notes just happen to be," Melanie carried on and I just had to finish it off. I knew that we probably sounded like a bunch of loons for reciting it, but the nonsense that was going on was something that I needed before we got down to business.

"Do-re-mi, do-re-mi," I sang out and heard Melanie's giggle from a few people ahead of me.

"Hey! Maria and Rolfe, cut it out!" Jeb whisper-yelled at us and I nearly combusted with trying not to laugh out loud, but a few chuckles still escaped. Maggie turned around to face me and I saw her give me a dirty look, but I just responded to that by rolling my eyes and she turned back around again.

"I'd say that I'm more like Friedrich," I argued back playfully and I noticed Jeb shake his head.

"No, you'd have to be Rolfe so that Wanda could be Liesl. Otherwise what you'd have would be incest of the very wrongest kind," Melanie pointed out and I nodded, thinking it over some more.

"I have no idea what you're all talking about," Wanda said honestly from beside me and before she could finish her sentence, we all chimed out the same answer.

"The Sound of Music," everyone said at nearly the same times.

"It was a movie. And then a play... or something like that," Jeb explained. "Now hush up; I don't want to be attracting wildlife to our existence."

"Explain now?" Wanda asked after a few moments of silence and I nodded.

"I honestly didn't want to keep it from you for so long, Wanda. It all started about five months ago when Kyle, Jared and Melanie came to get me when you were sleeping. They'd spotted something moving out in the desert and wanted me to go and look, but by the time I got out there it was gone," I explained and Wanda sighed beside me. I turned my head to look down at her.

"I know that much, I was actually awake when they came to get you," she admitted, and that shocked me a little bit. I had no idea that she was just lying there when all of that went on, but it also didn't make sense why she left it alone and did not confront me about it then.

"Oh," I replied lamely, pausing before continuing with my explanation. "Well, after that I started doing more patrols, mostly at night and well after you were asleep and I was with Kyle more often than not; he was doing the same thing to Sunny. And for about a month after the initial sighting there was nothing moving out there, but then Melanie spotted it out there again."

"Which is when she came to get you and that's when that whole thing started," Wanda deduced and I nodded my head. Everything seemed so stupid in hindsight, I knew why it was so important to keep it from Wanda in the beginning, but I should have told her ages ago.

"Right," I replied, agreeing with her. As we walked a few more paces, I looked up at the inky night sky, easily picking out the big and little dipper in with the millions of stars blanketed across the sky as far as the eye could see.

"Then what?" she prompted me and I brought myself back to reality a little bit, focussing more on the moon that was still rising ahead of us, illuminating the pathway for everyone to walk. I was thankful that we didn't have to bother with lamps for this expedition; they were like big blinking lights saying 'humans here'.

"Then we noticed another figure and though that it was the same one at first, but quickly realized that there was more than one person. Jeb even went out there to investigate their little camp and concluded that there were indeed two people," I took a deep breath before continuing.

"After that, there was a third, and possibly a fourth. Now we don't know how many are out there, which is why our little search party is basically stacked, both with muscle and power," I finished off, feeling a whole hell of a lot better getting all of that off of my chest.

Wanda was quiet then, except for the sounds of the crunching soil under her small feet and I even glanced down at her to make sure that she wasn't terribly mad or anything. Her face was the picture of calm, probably only because she was processing everything and realizing just how serious everything had gotten. I knew that it probably wouldn't last too long, so I mentally braced myself for what would happen next with her.

"So why didn't you tell me this? I get that I might not have been much of a help to you, since you clearly didn't trust me with that, but why not tell me?" Wanda asked and by the sound of her faltering voice I knew that she was close to tears.

"Wanda, stop," I instructed her at once, jumping around so that I was standing firmly in front of Wanda. "Stop," I repeated, placing my hands on her shoulders to halt her body and she finally listened.

"It is not that I don't trust you love, it's not that at all! I just didn't want you to be hurt or upset by the news. I didn't know how you would react to learning about other people hanging around where we could see them, that's all. And then by the time that I really wanted to tell you it had already formed into the whole wedding lie thing," I tried to reason with Wanda, but she shook her head and made to step around me, but I followed her every move.

"That's no real excuse, Ian. It _hurts_ to know that you didn't trust me enough with what was going on to tell me. What did you think that I would do? Freak out and start crying like a little baby? Run out to them, hoping that they would either kill me or take me back? Expose all of you to them at the first opportunity?" she was borderline hysterical, but still managed to keep her voice in check. Wanda started to back away from me then, but I remained firm, letting her fight with me for only a few seconds before I drew her body to mine and wrapped my arms around her tight.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, baby," I crooned to her, feeling Wanda grip the back of my shirt tightly in her hands as her whole body shook with sobs. "I really didn't mean for it to get like this. I'm an idiot, I really am. I never meant to hurt you like this, or make you cry at all. I really hope that you can forgive me."

I swayed her back and forth on the spot until Wanda gained a little bit of control over herself and pulled away from me a tiny bit.

"I understand why you did it, Ian but it was wrong," she whispered and I nodded, closing my eyes in defeat; I really hated what I had done. "I could have helped you, you know. Instead of keeping me out of everything and having to lie and keep secrets, I could have helped. I wouldn't have been pushy or anything like you might have thought that I would be; I'm not like that, Ian."

"I know. I know that you're not at all. I just..."

"Let's go!" Maggie hissed from somewhere in the darkness. "Jeb is waiting for you two; we're almost there."

"Later," Wanda whispered and I nodded. Together, we walked towards where Maggie's voice had come from and I felt Wanda grab my hand with one of hers as we continued on, eventually catching up to the group.

"They're just over that little hill," Brandt informed us and I nodded; it was now or never.

Very quietly, the group of us crept along behind Kyle who was elected to lead the way simply because of his choice of weapon. If anyone was going to lunge at him, he wouldn't hesitate to wound them, even if it wasn't necessarily the right thing to do. The hill that these people were behind was just a small rocky formation that had a little grass growing on the top of it. It wasn't the best of hiding spots, but a small rocky ridge ran alongside of it, which was what hid them from our view.

I pressed down on Wanda's head and held our hands behind my back, signalling for her to crouch down with me and stay behind; surprisingly she followed my silent instructions without questioning them at all. I really wanted her to be the last one seen for her own safety; call me controlling, or whatever you'd like, but if there was going to be a fight I'd put my life before hers.

Kyle crept up and signalled for Jared and Brandt to follow him as they snuck up and around the small hill, putting themselves in plain view of the people behind the rock. Kyle's voice could be heard in the night air addressing the people and after about three heartbeats, Jeb, Maggie and Aaron followed behind them. I tiptoed closer to hear better, but still remained out of sight with Wanda for at least another minute or two.

"What are you doing way out here?" Kyle addressed the others and I held my breath as we waited to hear the answering voice.

"We... we were looking for somewhere safe to be," a man's voice answered. "I had no idea that there were other humans out here too. You are humans, right?"

"Why yes we are," Jeb said and I heard the flashlight click on, watching as the band of light bounced around in the darkness as he shone it on everyone's eyes.

I was especially thankful that Wanda wasn't with them as it would have instantly given her away. I felt her hand tighten around mine and I knew that we were thinking the same thing. Instinctively, pulled her closer to me and felt Wanda's slender arm gripping my bicep as we waited to hear more.

"How many of there are you?" Maggie asked as the man sighed.

"Just four. I was with my wife, but she was taken; I just narrowly escaped and then eventually met up with these two over here," he explained.

"I'm the newest member of this little clan," a musical voice rang out and my heart skipped a beat; I knew that voice.

"Wanda, come on," I barely whispered, but she nodded all the same and we rose from our crouched position to step around the hill. "I will go out there first, but I want you to stay right here until I say so, okay?"

"Please don't let go," she said quickly and I nodded, willing to oblige to that as I didn't want to let her go, but I had to see who exactly was around the corner. We edged our way around the corner and stopped when I knew that Wanda would be hidden from view once I stepped out.

I took a deep breath before making my presence know, still grasping onto Wanda's hand for dear life, with her returning the grip. I didn't realize that Jeb hadn't turned off the flashlight; rather, he was in the middle of checking the others' eyes to make sure that they were human. I focussed in on the little beam of light and saw that it lit up a woman's face, one that was very familiar to me.

"Megan?" I asked in disbelief as the light was trained on her face.

**A/N: Dun dun dunn. How does he know her? You'll have to wait to find out... :P**

**Oh! I went to the Harry Potter Exhibition at the Science Centre in Toronto last Saturday and I Highly recommend going to see it if anyone likes Harry Potter! It was a very neat exhibit, so if you have the chance, go!**

**Review : )**


	7. Love is Our Resistance

**Hey guys! Sorry, real life got in the way! It was my birthday and then a bunch of stuff happened, so sorry about being late (again).**

**Thanks so much to hanaharoo, ladaane, oohapoo, piccolover22, PachO'shea, Separate Entitiy, DracoMalfoy4Ever, jediah sokaroxx, 123-Markham-123, anmapamo, 4-eva-bookworm, HockeeChica, emotionalpoemgirl, 17cowgirl, Silent Shootting Stars, Karen Mc N and O'Shea Fan for your wonderful reviews!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own The Host or any of its characters; they belong to the lovely Stephenie Meyer. I do however, own the plot.**

**Ian POV**

"Megan?" I asked again, blinking a few times just to make sure that I wasn't seeing anything and that she really was standing there in front of us. I opened my eyes up again and saw that she was staring directly at me with a similar look of disbelief to the one that was plastered across my face.

I noticed that she had begun to lift the corners of her lips up into a smile, but I cut my eyes across the group to Kyle to see what his reaction to the development would be. He was still gripping the knife tight in his right hand, but he was scratching his right shoulder while shaking his head back and forth. Kyle must have sensed my gaze on him because he turned his head to look over at me and together we shared a significant look.

"Anyone care to explain?" I vaguely heard Melanie ask from somewhere in front of me, but I was in so much of a daze that I barely even knew how to start responding to that question.

"Megan was our next door neighbour for all of our lives," Kyle finally spoke up after a minute of silence. "Well, technically just her and Ian's life cause I'm older than them and all."

"Our Moms were really good friends," Megan added and everyone's head turned to look at her. "It was one of those things where the three of us spent all of our little lives together; from all of the family trips everywhere to bathing together as toddlers. Not that I remember that, they just had lots of pictures."

"While that's cute and all, but who are the rest of you?" Maggie asked, obviously not impressed with our little story. The other people introduced themselves, but I didn't retain any information from the introductions, I was just so shook up at the fact that someone other than Kyle was there from my past. I thought that I would never see anyone from that 'old life' ever again, but standing in front of us was the number one person in my life for a number of years; well, outside of my family, of course.

I felt my right hand being squeezed and looked over to see Wanda giving me a questioning look, I could tell by her face that she was confused and just wanted to see what was going on. I was surprised that none of the new people had noticed that my one hand was out of their sight, being held at an awkward angle for someone supposedly coming to them alone. I nodded at Wanda who took a tentative step forwards, so I smiled widely at her to know that it was all okay out there. The thought of them not liking the fact that Wanda had switched teams did cross my mind, but then I realized that the number of us that were holding weapons outnumbered the number of the others, so I figured that she would be covered if anything were to happen; I would be the first one to jump in front of her should anything happen.

"Where's Wanda?" someone asked and I whipped my head around to see that all eyes were trained on me.

"She's right here," I told them, giving her hand a gentle tug and Wanda stepped out from behind the rock to stand right beside me. I took the opportunity to let go of her hand and wrap my arm around her waist instead, simply watching her reaction to the scene around us. It was kind of hard to do in the dark, but I was so attuned to her that I could sense exactly what was going on with her. Wanda first glanced at me for reassurance before looking at all of the familiar faces around us; I quickly gave her a smile and felt her relax ever so slightly. When she looked over the unfamiliar people two of the men gave her little smiles, but one looked away right away. I was a bit relieved that none of them had really noticed what she was until Megan spoke up.

"What the hell are you thinking? She's a soul!" Megan practically cried out, but Jeb and a few others shushed her; just because we had found them, it didn't mean that they were the only ones out there in the desert.

"Wanda is my friend and she lives with us and if anyone has an issue with that then they can find another place to live. That's my rule and we all have to live by it, you hear?" Jeb spoke up and I was glad that he did so that I didn't have to. Plus, it was better that he did, since it was his place and all.

"But... but... she's one of _them_," the man closest to Wanda said maliciously, with a menacing gleam in his eyes. Instinctively, I turned our bodies so that I put myself in front of Wanda, angling us as I glared back at this man. At the same time, I was a bit surprised to see that both Jared _and_ Kyle stepped in front of us in sort of a protective stance. It was nice to see that they were both willing to stand up for Wanda, just like I was.

"Yes, we know, and..." Melanie piped up, but Jared cleared his throat and she stopped, which was probably the best thing for her to do. Judging by the tone of her voice, she was looking for an argument, and that was the last thing that any of the group needed with these new people if we were going to make anything of this meeting.

"Why are you guys not doing anything about it?" another man asked and I shuffled Wanda back a few feet just in case.

"There's nothing to do about anything," Jared responded. "Wanda is with us, end of story."

After that, nothing was said from the men about the subject, but I could tell by the look on both of their faces, and Megan's that they still weren't really happy with the settlement.

"Ian," Wanda whispered into my right ear, and I tilted my head down towards her so that I could keep my eyes on the newcomers standing there and staring right at her. "Maybe it wasn't such a good idea that I came out here after all; I should probably go back to the caves or something."

"No," I murmured in response. "No, you're not going anywhere. Hiding you away won't make anything any different; they were going to have the same reaction whether you were out here with us or not. Don't worry; we won't let anything happen to you. Besides, I don't think that they will pull anything with us armed and all."

"Okay," she said quietly, and I gave her a small squeeze into my side and holding her a bit tighter.

Jeb then began to give his usual speech about the rules of his place if they chose to go with them. He also told them of the other colonies that we had found out about, should they want to ever hook up with one of them instead of us and then made them decide whether or not they wanted to join us. They all agreed to, which wasn't much of a surprise at all because they didn't really have any other place to go unless they wanted to run around some more, and I bet that they were all tired of that by that point in their lives.

Everyone turned to start travelling back in the direction that we had come in from and Kyle and Jared jogged over to us before anyone else had even started moving their feet.

"You two should go ahead and we'll kind of sandwich them in between us. Jeb, Maggie and Brandt can hold up the back," Jared said matter-of-factly. "I still don't trust them very much and there is no telling if they'll try to pull something over us."

"Sounds good," I replied, nodding my head. "I doubt that any of them will give us much grief once they're all back home and living with us and they can see exactly the role that Sunny and Wanda play though. I think that it was more just the combined initial shock of learning that there were more humans out there _and_ the fact that we have a... Wanda with us."

"You can say it you know," Wanda said and I looked down at her to see that she was shrugging the shoulder that wasn't attached to my body. "I won't be offended if you say it; it's not like it's a bad word or anything, I am a soul."

"Wanda, how many times do we..."

"I know Ian, we've been over this a hundred times as you keep reminding me, but you know as well as I do that I am not human. As much as I would like to be, I am not and just because you don't want me to say the word 'soul' out loud doesn't change what I am. You were about to say it, so I think that you should give up the whole thing Ian. I'm okay with you saying it; you don't have to hold anything back."

I honestly couldn't believe all the stuff that was coming out of her mouth right then and I knew that I had to set things straight right then and there. For some reason, she was clearly feeling vulnerable at that moment, very opposite to how she was before when she had confronted everyone in the hallway right before we were about to leave, demanding to join us and not taking 'no' for an answer. I didn't care that everyone was around us, but I stopped dead in my tracks to rectify the situation right at that moment.

I stood face to face with Wanda, letting go of her for a moment before taking her cheeks between my palms and I literally felt her face get warmer as she flushed and even though I couldn't visibly see it, I knew that she was blushing. I vaguely registered that people were walking past us, as I was solely focussed on Wanda, but I felt a hand clap on my shoulder and recognized it as Kyle's and that it meant he was staying behind with us.

"Wanda I didn't say that word simply because I didn't want to peg you in with the rest of the population out there. I know that you're right and we've been over this a hundred times, but it's the truth," I told her, touching my nose to hers; at least I hoped it was her nose, it was kind of pitch dark out.

"My intention was not to degrade you and group you in with the rest of those people out there in the world because in no way are you like them. Do we really have to go over it again?" I asked and heard her giggle as her sweet breath fanned across my face due to our closeness.

"No we don't," Wanda laughed and I gently kissed what I hoped was her cheek before releasing my gentle hold on her and taking her hand in mine instead to lead her back across the desert.

"We should come up with some new name for people like you," I commented, thinking of something appropriate while Wanda just giggled some more. "No seriously though! I don't want to have to skirt around that word any more, we need something good though, nothing cheesy."

"I don't know, Ian. It sounds a little silly if we do that. How will people ever know what we're talking about then?" Wanda asked and I shrugged as we caught up to a looming figure that I could only assume was Kyle waiting for us.

"They'll just know," I answered kind of lamely and I didn't think anything of it when she snorted in response. "We don't have to think of it right now, but it would still be nice to have, you know?"

"Sure Ian," Wanda said, laughing slightly as we reached Kyle.

"So what do you make of this, Ian?" he asked and when I didn't respond because I didn't know what he meant Kyle elaborated further.

"I mean, about the whole Megan showing up in the desert thing."

"Oh that," I said, looking at the retreating backs of the people in front of us. "I don't really know what to make of it. What do you think?"

"It's definitely weird, I have to say. I mean, what are the chances that someone from our childhood just randomly shows up in the desert where we happen to be hiding out. Personally, I believe that there might be something fishy about that," Kyle said and I rolled my eyes though he couldn't see them in the pitch darkness.

"Are you seriously kidding me? You think that Megan would have followed us or something and hid out for this long? It just doesn't seem like something that she would do. The others though, we don't know what they are capable of at all, so they might have had something to do with it," I told him

"Are you excited to have her hanging around though? You know, to actually have your best friend here with you and stuff. After all, you two were practically joined at the hip for like, ever," Kyle pointed out but I simply shook my head, looking out on the horizon to see the first few rays of sun peeking out as it started to rise up.

"Megan and I were friends a long time ago. Since we graduated high school we barely kept in contact with each other; I have no idea what's happened to her since then." I noticed that Wanda was being awfully silent again, so I bumped my shoulder against hers. "Besides, Wanda is my best friend now. She knows me better than anyone and I want it to stay that way."

"Oh gee, Ian that's cute," Kyle mocked me, snorting.

"No, but it's the truth!" I protested, trying to make them see.

"Yeah yeah. But what do we make of the other guys. They don't seem to like the idea of people like Wanda and Sunny, so we've definitely got to set that straight, eh?" Kyle continued on, but I began to tune him out and usher them along to get back before the sun got up even higher in the sky. It was important that we got back as soon as possible to get everything figured out.

**Wanda POV**

I still wasn't sure what to think about everything that had happened in the last hour or so; everything seemed too surreal and confusing and I just didn't know how to react so I kept quiet unless someone was speaking directly to me. I knew that things would certainly get interesting with Ian's childhood friend coming to live with us, but I hoped that she would just fit in somewhere and just be another friend to everyone. By the look on her face when she figured out what I was though, my gut instinct told me that it wouldn't end up being that simple.

As Ian and Kyle bantered back and forth during our hike home I didn't want to interject so I remained silent while holding on to Ian the whole time. I felt something wrap around my feet so I paused for a second to look down at the ground to try and see what was causing all the trouble but I didn't see anything so I continued to walk. On my second step, my feet stopped moving and I knew that I would hit the ground; sure enough, I began to fall but felt my arm being pulled against as Ian tugged on it but my hand slipped from his and I hit the ground hard.

"Wanda!" Ian called out quite loudly for it being very early in the morning out in the open. "Are you okay? Does anything hurt?"

"I'm fine," I told him, pushing up off of the sandy ground using both of my palms, but I still felt him gripping my arms to guide me up all the same. "Really, I'm okay," I tried to reassure him once I was standing up again and I offered him a small smile.

"Promise?"

"Ian," I giggled. "I promise you that I am okay, seriously." I cupped stepped closer to him and wrapped my hand around the back of his neck, kissing his scruffy cheek once before wrinkling my nose.

"What, you don't like that?" he teased, enfolding my body in his strong, muscular arms and our close proximity made my stomach come alive with the butterflies that always seemed to be there, but only really fluttered around a lot when we were close.

"You're not liking my scruff?" Ian asked, deliberately rubbing his cheek against mine and I couldn't help but to laugh out loud while I tried to get away from it, but he held me so tight to him that I had no choice but to be subjected to his torture. "Most girls like that look on their guys."

"Stop, stop... stop!" I laughed and tried to push his head away from me but instead he just burrowed into my neck. "I'm not saying that I don't like the look of you like that, but it scratches! I'm afraid that you'll leave red marks on my cheeks or something!"

"Ah, don't you worry about a thing, my dear," Ian replied, kissing my neck and rubbing his cheek against it for good measure. "You still look as beautiful as ever."

"Let's go you love birds!" Mel called softly. "You can get a room later on, but we need to get back before the sun comes right up out of the sky and we're all exposed."

"Okay, okay," Ian relented, letting go of me but not before placing one last kiss on my lips, leaving them tingling, and not just from the hair on his face. "We'll continue later," he said, turning to face me and in the small bit of light illuminating the sky I noticed that he winked at me.

"Race ya!" Kyle yelled out from somewhere and all of the people that knew him started running towards home while the others just looked at us wildly, but I guessed that they had a point; there was a bunch of burly men running across the desert with weapons still gripped tightly in their hands.

Ian took off but I didn't want to chase after him because I was getting tired out from my earlier exercise so I let him go on ahead. By the time I caught up with the group, Jeb was leading the newcomers into the entrance, but not before having Jared blindfold each and every one of them to lead them into the caves. I didn't see Ian with them, so I assumed that he'd already gone inside without me. Right when I was about to follow Mel inside I heard a noise coming from my left that sounded a bit like something leaking so I stopped to see what on Earth it was.

"Wanda, over here!" a whisper floated over to me and I revolved on the spot, looking around. I spotted a hand from over on my right and I frowned, not sure who it was attached to, but I decided to go and investigate it all the same. Once I got around the corner that hid our access to the caves I saw a familiar figure sitting on top of a big, flat rock and grinned before bouncing over to Ian and plopping down beside him.

"Care to explain why you're hiding out over here?" I asked, cuddling up to his side. Even though we lived in the desert, it was still sort of chilly so very early in the morning. Almost instinctively, Ian draped his arm across my back, rubbing up and down my arm so I leaned my head on top of his shoulder.

"I just wanted one more moment of quiet before everything gets all wonky inside," he explained and I nodded my head in understanding. "I mean, even though it will be great to have someone else that I know in there, I'm just not sure how the others will take it; on both sides."

"That's understandable," I responded gently, resting my right hand on Ian's knee before giving it a small, affectionate squeeze.

"I also wanted to watch the sunrise, to be completely honest. We're out here anyways and all that I'm going to do when I go back in there is sleep and make up for losing a night of rest."

"I don't know if I've ever watched it before," I admitted, looking up at the vibrant colours lighting up the dark sky. There were all kinds of yellows, oranges, pinks and purples dancing around in an intricate way that looked choreographed; almost in a way that looked like it was very rehearsed in a very magical kind of way.

"I'm sure you have," Ian murmured softly and I sighed in contentment.

"Not on Earth, I don't think. Well, not that I can remember at all."

"Well then, of course that didn't count if you can't remember it," he stated.

"Of course it didn't," I agreed, leaning into him further, wanting to commit the colours to my memory for the rest of my life. "It's gorgeous." By that point the top of the sun was peering up over the landscape, sending different shades of red not only streaking across the sky, but cascading all over the terrain on the ground as well.

"You're gorgeous," Ian's deep voice rumbled in my ear, sending shivers down my spine; good ones though. I lifted my head off of his shoulder to give him a look but I saw that he wasn't even paying any attention to the beautiful sunrise, he was just watching me. I instantly blushed, knowing that all his attention was on me.

"Ian," I groaned, looking back at the brilliant sky, tilting my head up to the sky as the first few sunrays hit my skin, starting to instantly warm me up, adding to the heat from Ian's body beside mine.

"So beautiful," Ian mumbled nuzzling his face into my neck again, though I didn't mind the scratchiness that time around, for his soft lips touching my skin and the instant flaming sensation that followed them more than made up for it.

"You really don't see yourself clearly at all, do you?" I shook my head in response, not trusting myself to form coherent words as he was dragging me into the usual daze that I got while around him and it wasn't fair.

"I will spend the rest of our lives together trying to make you see how lovely you really are if I have to," Ian vowed and I flushed red again. "I really will."

He then pulled my shoulders around, effectively forcing my entire body to turn around in towards him until I ended up settled against his side. A gust of wind blew around us at that very moment and my hair fell into my face so I reached up to push it aside like I'd grown accustomed to, but Ian beat me to it, yet again. He very gently brushed it all away before tucking the hair back behind my ear, caressing the lobe with the fingers on his right hand on his way by. That same hand the cupped my cheek, rubbing it once and leaned in closer to me, his face looming as I started biting my bottom lip between my teeth in anticipation about what I thought was to come.

Without saying a word, Ian touched his thumb to my lip and gently pulled down, effectively making my teeth let go. I started to smile up at Ian, but as soon as my eyes locked on his Ian closed the little space between us and pressed his lips to mine. Like always, it felt like I was walking on a cloud when we kissed and I never, ever wanted that feeling to go away. I vowed then to never let anything come between us ever again; well, at least I would try my best to not let it.

"I love you," Ian muttered softly once our lips parted for an instant, but he still kept them touching mine in the lightest way so my lips ended up moving with his, mirroring every movement. "I love you so much."

The sincerity with which Ian said those words made tears prick at the corners of my eyes, but I swallowed hard, determined not to let them fall and show him how vulnerable those words made me feel. Every time Ian uttered them it made me feel like I was the luckiest girl on the world to have found someone who could ever reciprocate my emotions with the same intensity that Ian could.

"I love you too Ian. With all of my heart," I responded, taking a hold of his hand and slowly guiding it up until I rested it on top of my hear so that he could feel the rapid pace at which it was beating. I knew by the look in his eyes that he knew that it truly belonged to him and I smiled a little before kissing him back gently.

I then released my hold on him completely and turned around; settling myself down on top of the rock in between Ian's outstretched legs. Once his arms were around me, effectively caging me to him, I leaned back, trying not to topple him over, but I'd seen his abs, he was strong so that wouldn't happen. I felt very safe and secure in his arms; like usual but it was a feeling that I relished. It wasn't too often that we had special quiet moments to ourselves where we could just sit and watch the sun come up. To me, it almost felt like the calm before the storm, but I immediately pushed that thought to the back of my head so that I didn't ruin the moment; I wanted to commit all the good things to my memory so that I'd never forget them.

"It's so beautiful. I mean, the sun when it's first rising like this," I said, elaborating a bit so that Ian knew exactly what I meant.

"I can think of something else that's just as beautiful, if not even more," he replied, nuzzling his nose into the hair that fell down my back. "And she's sitting right in front of me."

"Ian," I groaned, my face flushing a nice shade of tomato. "You keep saying that."

"I say it because it's the truth," he said simply and I stayed quiet, opting to focus on the sun without directly looking at it. It was nearly all the way in the sky and out of the ground so I knew that we'd have to go back inside soon, but I didn't want to at all.

"I love you," Ian said again right before his soft lips pressed down right over top of my insertion sky and I literally melted into his body even further, completely relaxed by his little action.

"Love you too," I whispered, but I knew that he heard it by the gentle answering squeeze that he gave me and I felt Ian's chin rest on top of my head. I wished then that we could stay that way forever; just Ian and I alone and without a care in the world. It would be the greatest gift that I could be given.

**A/N: Bit of fluff for you at the end there.  
Now. With regards to postings, I have been babysitting a lot this week for whatever reason and had a lot of time to write, so the next chapter will be up either late Sunday or Monday some time. Sorry for the lack of updates in these last weeks!**

**I will reply to replies (hehe) tomorrow, but I'm very tired and I have to get up at 4:30 tomorrow so I will leave it until then when I am more coherent.**

**I had a question about the Harry Potter Exhibition too... yes, it is only in Toronto right now until the end of August. I'm not sure where it's going after this (if it is) because it was only ever supposed to be in Chicago and New York, but then the organizers decided to bring it up to Toronto too. I'm not sure of the exact reason for adding a third showing, but I'm sure not complaining!**

**Review! : )**


	8. Tell Me Why

**Here you go!**

**Thanks so much to piccolover22, oohapoo, O'SheaFan, DracoMalfoy4Ever, ladaane Karen Mc N, HockeeChica, silverbell1, WhiteCamellia, PachO'shea, twihardhannah, AnnabelLloyd97, and SwanPrincessBride for your awesome reviews!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own The Host or any of its characters; they belong to the lovely Stephenie Meyer. I do however, own the plot.**

**Ian POV**

Wanda and I stayed out until the sun was very high in the sky and I couldn't deny that it felt good to have it beating down on my arms, legs and face instead of just feeling the pure humidity that was in the caves. I closed my eyes to the sun, relishing the redness that was behind my lids with the sun shining down on them and pretending that I was somewhere else with Wanda; somewhere out in the real world as I liked to frequent in my day dreams. I know that I said it a lot, but I really did believe that there was going to be a time that we could leave the caves for good and get our own place to call home.

I knew that once we did leave, we would all have to find houses relatively close to each other; there was no way that Wanda and Melanie could be separated by oceans and countries let alone states, at least in the beginning anyways. I even had to admit that it might not be so bad to live in proximity to Kyle as well, I never thought that would ever happen, but since Sunny had come into his life he'd tamed it down; at least at little bit.

I supposed that since the resistance had lived on its own for as long as it had that we would have no problem fitting back in with society as long as we had the right people to back us up. It would be a lot of work, and all that I wanted to do then was enjoy my life for the moment and not have to think about much else other than Wanda; not that I did much else anyways.

AsI sat there and listened to the cicadas making their noise even that early in the morning I was able to picture Wanda and myself sitting out in an old wooden swing on the porch of our typical white picketed fence all American home, watching the world go by. It was cheesy, but the mental image was definitely something to smile about. I could see us doing exactly the same thing that we had just did in real life; watching the sun rise up over the horizon, but in my mind we were sitting on that swing. Wanda could sit beside me with a blanket draped over top of her to keep the morning chill away, one of her jean clad legs hanging out from under it as her bare foot with its pink painted toenails gently rocked us back and forth. She would be wearing a sweater with her hair ruffled gently from sleep as beautiful as ever, but she would still be cold and have to lean into me for warmth and I would gladly wrap my arm around her. I could be wearing shorts and a sweat shirt but with socks and shoes on so that I could go for an early morning run to keep me in shape. The two of us could be drinking coffee from matching mugs, the steam curling up from the hot liquid into the cool morning air. It really was a perfect image.

"Ian?" Wanda's gentle voice lifted me out of my reverie and brought me back to the present where she was still sitting beside me, but in a t-shirt and shorts with little flats on that appeared to be a little worn out; we would have to get her new shoes from the stash pretty soon.

"Yes, love?" I responded equally as soft to try and keep out voices down so that the sounds of nature from around us were the predominant noises around us.

"What do you think that you would be doing in your life if things weren't as messed up as they are?" she inquired and I was a little taken back by it, as in no century or time was I expecting to hear her ask me that.

"First of all, things are not messed up—" I began, but I could feel Wanda shaking her head back and forth gently against my chest so I stopped in order to hear what she had to say to me.

"Things are messed up compared to what you would have normally been doing with your life had nothing ever happened though," she pointed out and I remained silent, not wanting to admit that she was indeed right; it had nothing to do with my self esteem or anything, I just wanted to non-verbally let her know.

"Well, I for sure would have been out of College and working full time by now. I wanted to be an Athletic Therapist, if you can believe that," I said with a small chuckle, resting my chin back on Wanda's head as I watched a hawk fly over head.

"What is an Athletic Therapist?" she asked and I rolled my eyes at myself for just assuming that Wanda knew exactly what I was talking about. She would have had no exposure to things like that since souls didn't need reconditioning like that or anything.

"It's basically a person who works with all kinds of athletes that have had injuries and stuff. They give like training to them according to their sport, deal with injury prevention and also injury rehabilitation so that they can get back to what they were doing before," I explained as best as I could, but I feared that she still wouldn't get it and I would have to really struggle to find the right words.

"Oh, that sounds neat," Wanda commented and was silent for a few seconds. I took the opportunity to release my hold on Wanda with one of my arms to bring it up and comb it through her hair as I knew that she really liked it when people played with her hair, and to be honest I liked feeling its silky smoothness as well.

"What made you want to become an Athletic Therapist Ian?"

"Well, I spent my fair share of time in with my therapist with the various injuries that I had over my many years of sports playing, so I guess that it was kind of natural that I took an interest in the profession; especially as I got older and was thinking more about my future and stuff," I told her, reminiscing about the past and all those appointment that my Mom had to take me to for that kind of thing.

"Where were you going to go to school for that?" Wanda began running the tips of her fingers along my forearm that was still wrapped around her waist and I flexed my muscles a bit to keep from laughing as it turned out that I was ticklish right there.

"The University of California Pennsylvania," I answered without hesitation. "For whatever reason I had it in my head that I really wanted to go there really for their soccer program as well. We had a guy from my neighbourhood go there on a football scholarship and he really enjoyed it there, so it didn't seem like a bad choice. I did end up going there and starting an Undergraduate degree in Biology, if you can believe that. Then everything happened when Kyle and I were home for a few weeks of summer vacation."

"And did you like it? I mean, the school, the soccer and your program and stuff?"

"I loved it," I told her with a smile on my face. "I had the best time there, and it wasn't because of all the partying and stuff because I honestly wasn't in to that kind of thing; I'd been dragged along to enough high school parties by my friends that I was over it by the time that College hit. More often than not, I could either be found in the library studying my ass off or in the gym working out."

"So by this time you'd be out on your own and stuff, done with all of that schooling I would assume," she mused and I nodded gently. "Would you have been married, or starting a family?"

"No," I answered, not thinking twice about that answer. "Absolutely not."

"Why?" her question was just a whisper in the wind and I was still able to make out the soft strands of her voice before they were carried away from me. I closed my eyes and nuzzled my face into her neck, eliciting a soft giggle from Wanda.

"Because you weren't there. Now that I know what I had been missing all of those years, I know that I never would have truly been happy; and I know that I've told you that hundreds of times, but it really is the truth, Wanda."

"Surely you would have settled down though..."

"But it would have been just that—settling. I might have been with someone, but they never, ever would have made me truly happy or anything; not as much as you can," I breathed into Wanda's ear and I felt her tiny body shudder within my grasp. "I know that it might sound cheesy or corny, but it's the absolute truth."

Wanda remained quiet for a moment or two before nodding her head gently against my chest. I wondered what else she was thinking of, but I decided that if she had something more to say then she would say it, without a doubt. Until she did though, I moved all of her hair to the left side of her neck, gently brushing it with my fingers in the process until the scar for her insertion was visible to me. Personally, I really loved that part of her, because that was how my Wanda was brought exclusively to me.

I began to tenderly massage the scar with my right thumb and it was almost funny how Wanda's body immediately began to relax as soon as I touched it for any length of time. I had noticed that many times before and I knew that if I kept touching it, Wanda might start to fall asleep; which was what I wanted her to do so that she would actually get some rest instead of working herself into the ground.

"Ian, that's not fair," Wanda's voice mumbled up towards me and I couldn't help but to chuckle. "You know what it does to me."

"I know," I simply responded. "Come on up here, love." Wanda turned around as I let go of her completely so that she could see me indicating that I wanted her to sit up more on my lap than where she was seated.

"Why?" she inquired and I shrugged.

"Just because," I told her and she rolled her eyes, but didn't protest as she moved to sit up with me. Once she had gotten in position, I put my arm back around her so that she was cradled into my side before I resumed with rubbing her scar again.

I could tell that she was getting tired; which was after all, my ultimate goal, as her head started leaning on my chest and I could just see her eyes beginning to close up. Just when I thought that she was asleep, Wanda spoke to me again.

"Do you think that Sunny and I will have to hide from the new people for awhile?" By the tone of her voice, it was clear to me that Wanda was concerned about it without deliberately coming out and saying that she was. I sighed before answering her.

"No, you won't," I told her with finality. "I know that they may have seemed a little hostile, but they've really only got one choice; they have to abide by Jeb's rules or else they have to go and I don't think that any of them are ready to go back out on their own again."

"Alright," she conceded, but I didn't totally believe her as Wanda's voice was laced with sleep and it was only a matter of seconds before she was completely asleep.

After a few more minutes of sitting there massaging her neck and watching the same hawk circle over top of us, I placed a kiss to Wanda's forehead and slid my other arm underneath the backs of her legs so that I could carry her back inside. Figuring out how to manoeuvre myself up with her in my arms proved to be tricky, as I didn't want to jostle her and wake her up or worse; I didn't think that I could live with myself if I dropped her at all. I just used my apparent superhero powers and somewhat gracefully lifted her up and began to walk back to the opening in the rocks, careful to check around me before I moved too much to make sure that no one was out there watching me.

Once inside the caves again, I realized quickly that the entrance tunnel was too small for me to carry Wanda through normally as she would hit her head and feet off of the walls and that was no good. Instead, I had to scuttle sideways similar to how a crab walks in order to safely travel around. Before we got too far, I glanced back at the opening behind us and watched the beams of light disappear as we travelled further and further into the darkness below the ground. I wasn't sure when the next time that either of us would get to safely sit outside like that again.

Approximately five minutes later, or at least it felt like five minutes, I could see the light from ahead of us in the main cavern as it streamed down from the holes in the ceiling above of us. I could also hear a deep voice echoing around and as we got closer I was able to recognize it as Jared's. I rolled my eyes and shook my head a little as I edged along the last few yards to the opening where I was able to step out into the relatively open space and turn to face the few people that were milling around in there, Jared included.

"Ah, there you are O'Shea," he commented, walking right over to me and shoving his hands to his front pockets, nodding towards another direction for me to follow him in.

"Was there something that you needed, Jared? Or are you just coming to say a nice hello for the hell of it?" I joked quietly so that Wanda didn't wake up as we talked. I saw Lily waving to me out of the corner of my eye and I smiled back, only to see her trotting after us.

"Hey Ian, what is going on in here? I saw a bunch of new people being led in with blindfolds a little while ago. Are they souls?" Lily asked and it almost felt like a game of twenty questions, only she was the one asking them all in a row.

"I didn't answer any of your inquiries, what makes you think that Ian will?" Jared responded and I could tell that his patience was wearing thing as he seemed a little weary and tired; totally understandable since we had been working all of the previous day and then out all night.

"Well Ian is a bit more personable than you are, you know," she retorted quickly and I held back a laugh, smiling all the same. "The way you're acting now is similar to that of an irritable bear that has woken up after the winter and can't find any food."

Lily's snappy responses and the way that she was glaring up at Jared with her hands on her hips was just the best sight to be seen and I so desperately wanted to clamp a hand down over my mouth but for obvious reasons I couldn't. I looked away from their little spat to see if anyone else was looking and noticed that Andy and Paige were full out laughing at the situation as well, so at least I didn't feel like I was the only one who thought that it was funny in any way.

"Ian, seriously though, what is going on?" Lily asked, her face flushed pink from her spat with Jared.

"We'll have someone come out in a minute; I want to make sure that I've gotten all of the facts right myself before we disclose any information about anything," I told her in the best way that I could, trying to sound professional and not flip out on her for asking as I knew that everyone who had seen them come through was wondering the same things.

"You'd better get someone to get out her quickly or else I'll come looking for you two myself," she threatened and I just nodded, understanding that it was best just to let her think whatever she wanted to; once Lily cooled down some then she would certainly be a little more patient and forgiving about not knowing everything right away. Lily trotted away then as Jared and I continued on our way.

"So what was it that you needed, Howe?" I asked him as we neared the entrance to the spider web of sleeping caverns and I was sure that we were alone.

"Well, Jeb really wants you to come down to where we're keeping them to discuss the whole situation. He feels like if you're able to get through to this Megan chick then the rest of the little group will follow suit once they see that it's really okay," he explained, shoving his hands into the front pockets of his jeans, leading us through the small entrance tunnel and down the one that lead to my room.

"I guess that makes sense," I said thoughtfully, carefully minding the space between Wanda's head and the wall once again, seeing that there was a little more space for her here. "But I don't see why Kyle can't do it, he knew her too."

"He's been trying, but she's so preoccupied with the fact that the both of you are alive that she's not really paying attention to him at all; that's why Jeb thinks it would be better if you went down there too, just to really prove that you're alive as well," Jared told me and I rolled my eyes; she would need that extra reassurance and of course it would be a pain in my backside.

"Could you get that for me? My hands are kind of full," I asked Jared once we'd come to a stop at my room, pointing with my chin at the door that needed to be moved out of the way in order for us to pass through.

Jared smirked and stood there, pretending to contemplate whether or not to open it for us, so I carefully held Wanda's body away from mine and towards his to indicate that he could hold her while I did it if he so preferred. Jared shook his head, rolling his stupid eyes at me and moved the door out of the way instead.

"Gee, thanks for being so helpful," I sarcastically remarked and he snorted, following me into my room. It was very light in there, no thanks to the holes in the roof way above us, but there was no way that I could block out the light for Wanda while she slept. I gently bent down to lay Wanda on her side of the bed and once she was completely on the mattress she moaned a bit and rolled onto her left side, cradling her blonde head with her arms. I smiled at her and pulled up a light sheet, kissing her forehead in the process before standing up.

"Jeez Ian, you think that you could have cleaned up a bit before you invited company in here, eh?" Jared teased and I flipped him off, making him quietly chuckle to himself.

"In all seriousness though, I can totally stay here with her if you want while you go down to Jeb. It won't take you that long," Jared offered and I turned to face him, gaping at the suggestion. "What? You don't trust me alone with her?"

"No, it's not that," I said, scratching my hair and mentally noting to get Wanda to give it a trim soon. "Well, I mean it's partly that, but why would you need to stand and watch her? What's going on?"

"Well, I don't know about you, but I don't entirely trust those idiots down in the storage room a hundred percent at all; you saw how they reacted to seeing her with us. I just don't want to see Wanda getting hurt over something so stupid; something that she absolutely can't control," Jared said simply and I had to say that I completely agreed with him.

"Are you sure that you'll be okay here? I promise that I won't be long and..." Jared simply held his hand up and sank to the floor against the wall close to the door.

"I'll be fine. I don't want anything to happen to Wanda just as much as you do; Mel would kill me if I did let anything happen, but that's besides the point. She's a good kid, and I can see how good she is for you. She won't even know that I was in here in the first place. Now you just run along and get back here as fast as you can."

I just smiled in thanks before taking off, slightly rattled by how nice Jared was being, but I supposed that he just loved Wanda as everyone else did; like a sister. It still shook me that he would want to step up like that and offer me the chance to see what was going on without having to worry about her being all alone. Realistically though, none of the newcomers would be able to get close to her anyways with us being down in the tunnels with them, so that even if they did escape we'd catch them before they got too far. I still quickened my pace though back through the main cavern, treading the path that I had just travelled on to get it all over with as fast as I could.

I didn't know for sure where they were keeping everyone, but I just followed my instincts and headed back up the tunnel to the entrance, but I veered off at the Y intersection away from the light of day as opposed to going directly towards it. As I got further under the ground it became cooler and the sound of hushed voices floated up to me as well. I stepped into the space and was instantly hit with an onslaught of memories from the time that Wanda had spent down in the room, instantly feeling guilty once again for all that I had done to her in the beginning.

A beam of light flashed in my direction from one of the lanterns that someone had evidently scooped up and in the slightly cramped space I could make out four sleeping bags that had been rolled out onto the floor. The space was partially take up with supplies, but there was enough room for that and for the nine or so people who were either standing or sitting as well; there was no sight of the rifle though, I noticed.

"Ah, there you are Ian," Jeb's voice called out to me from where he was standing over on my right. "I was hoping that you wouldn't be too long so that we could get the ball rolling. Now, we've already tried to explain the whole 'soul' thing to them, but they're just not getting it and Kyle's being no help at all. I was hopin' that you could try as well."

It was sort of a question, but more of an order, so I simply nodded my head at the request, cutting my eyes to Kyle who was pacing to my left; usually a sign that he was good and frustrated.

"I never thought that you would cross over to that Ian," Megan's voice rang out through the silence, louder than it should have been in the small space. "You, of all people who hated what they were doing to us once you found out and everything are now fraternizing with the enemy!"

"Things change, Megan," I simply said, crossing my arms across my chest to remain firm. "What they did to us was wrong, yes, but some of them are truly good and Wanda is one of them; not every one of them is our enemy."

"What is she, your pet?" Megan snapped and I rolled my eyes at her brazenness while I heard a distinctive snort that I would assume came from Kyle as no one else really cared enough to show an interest in the conversation.

"Well, that was her name," Kyle told the group and I nodded; sure it was, once upon a time in another lifetime.

"I thought that you just told us her name was Wanda," a nameless man came to stand beside Megan, looking confused.

"It is; well at least that's what I named her. Her real name is Wanderer, but I think that's a bit of a mouthful don't you?" Jeb asked and the guy seemed to back down at least a little bit. I took a second look at him and pegged him as a potential threat if he didn't comply with the rules; he was taller than me probably taller than six feet, and was built pretty large. I wasn't entirely sure who would win in a fight against him, but maybe the point was just to look threatening and not really carry out the part.

"So what? You meet one of them and all of a sudden you've converted? I thought that you were better than that," Megan spat and she technically had a right to be angry because she just didn't understand what was going on.

"What the hell? She's a..." I pivoted on the spot to glare at Melanie, effectively stopping all of the noises that were coming out of her mouth so that I could properly explain. Why she was even down there in the first place was beyond me as well.

"Wanda came to us in Melanie's body," I started, set on giving the abridged version of her story so that we weren't there for the rest of our lives. Melanie held up her hand and waved at them all just to show who exactly she was.

"After awhile Wanda realized exactly how much Melanie and Jared were in love with each other and she felt that she was intruding, so she decided to give Mel back her body so that they could live in peace. Wanda did all of this behind everyone's back, but luckily Jared was there when the separation happened or else she would have... died," I croaked out the last word, thinking of how crushed I was once I'd realized exactly where Wanda had disappeared to.

"Why would you care if she lived or died? She's just a soul, she's not supposed to be here," the other woman spoke up then and I got a look at her before she shied back into the shadows; she was definitely older than Megan by a number of years and it looked like she belonged to the older man or something.

"Wanda was my sister!" Mel said, stepping forward to stand directly beside me, giving me a small smile to let me know that she'd back me up. I returned it and also nodded my head a tiny bit too.

"And with Ian being in love with her as well, we couldn't exactly just let her go and die like she wanted to. She wanted to be buried on this Earth because she felt like she finally belonged with the human race. So we went out and got her a new body; one that already had a soul in it!" she said quickly before anyone got really angry with her. "And then we put her back where she belongs and it's worked out ever since."

I noticed that she conveniently left out the bit about our little separation but I was thankful for that; I had a feeling that they only would have blown up more over that little piece of information. Jeb started yawning really loudly and those of us who knew him took that as the cue to wrap things up so that he could get his 'beauty sleep'.

"So that's the story of Wanda; take it or leave it. She's one of us and she always will be," Mel said with finality and none of the newcomers spoke.

"Well, I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm bushed. Bed time, anyone?" Jeb called out and several people nodded in agreement. "Brandt, you're in charge."

It went without saying that we all began to file out of the small room and I made sure that Melanie went right in front of me; it only made sense because she had stuck her nose in the story and since Jared was looking after my girl I should probably look after his too. She was silent for the remainder of our travels out to the big room when she grabbed a hold of my arm and stopped dead in the spot so that I had no choice but to stop with her. I just simply nodded my head when Maggie passed by us, giving us her patented questioning look, trying to let her know that it was okay. In the few seconds that we were standing there I started to sweat as it was probably nearing mid-morning and I internally groaned at the fact that Wanda might not want me so close to her because of the heat.

"What was it that you needed?" I asked Mel, slightly irritated that she was cutting into the amount of time that I had to sleep.

"Keep your voice down, Ian," she instructed me, looking around the room at Lily and the gang who were still standing there; clearly in the dark by the looks they were shooting our way. "What are we going to do about Wanda?"

"What do you mean, she's fine," I replied reaching up to wipe the sweat off of my forehead with the inside of my left wrist.

"Well, I just don't entirely trust these new guys with all of the questions and the hostility that they're showing towards her and all. I tried to talk to Kyle about it as well for Sunny, but they don't really know about her yet so it's not that big of a deal, but still," she told me and I nodded in understanding, waving my hand and indicating for her to follow me; I didn't want to stand there and have anyone overhear anything until it was all settled down a little.

"You sound just like Jared," I told her, chuckling a little bit. "He's in the room right now watching her as she's sleeping. I guess we all have the same concerns then."

"Well, yeah. All I told him to do was go and get you for Jeb, not to stand and watch over her like that; it's really nice of him to do that though," Melanie replied thoughtfully. "But still, don't you think that it would be better if we all slept in the same room or something for extra protection?"

"Wanda would flip at that," I remarked, beginning to walk down our corridor and I heard her huff behind me.

"I know that she would, but it would be for her own good."

"Well, think about it Mel. These people don't even know where the sleeping rooms are, do they?" I didn't wait for an answer. "So there's no point in doing that kind of thing until they've decided to stay or not and Jeb's given them the all clear to be integrated into everyone's lives. Trust me, when that happens, I'll be on high alert," I told her, reaching my room and Jared stepped outside of it.

"I guess that's acceptable; there will be more of a threat then anyways. Alright, we'll play it by ear then, but I don't like it much!"

"I know you don't, Melanie," I chuckled, stepping into my room and sliding the door back in place before I bounded across the room and slid into bed beside Wanda, not worrying about the heat and just snuggling down with her.

**A/N: Happy Summer! And Happy Canada Day and 4****th**** of July tomorrow!  
I was hoping to have this up last Monday, but my dad kind of sprung an impromptu trip to the cottage then (because my one job ended then and my other one starts this Monday and I have no vacation time this summer at all!) and we've only just gotten back. On the plus side, Chapter 9's done!**

**Review : )**


	9. Two Worlds Collide

**Chapitre Neuf! **

**Thanks to PachO'shea, piccolover22, jediahsokaroxx, silverbell1, HockeeChica, brokenfromthepast, Sillla and Bloomerica for your awesome reviews!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own The Host or any of its characters; they belong to the lovely Stephenie Meyer. I do however, own the plot**

**Wanda POV**

"Is it later yet?" I asked Ian as soon as I heard his breathing speed up beside me and I knew right away that he was waking up from our little sleep.

I had been up for awhile and was sitting in bed, leaning against the pillow that I had propped up on the wall behind me, reading a book. I'd read it a few times before, but I still loved reading those same words on the pages; in fact, Jeb had given me permission to keep it because he knew of my love for the story.

Ian emitted a deep groan into his pillow and I looked down at him as two sleepy blue eyes glanced up at me before they quickly closed again at the harsh light from above. I giggled a bit at his reaction and bit my bottom lip to stifle it a little bit. Ian looked very comfortable lying on his stomach like that and it was too good of a sight to miss, so I put the book down on the mattress on the other side of my legs to turn my full attention on him.

"Well, is it?" I asked again, smiling fondly at my Ian.

I took notice then of how he was dressed; or not very dressed as the case was. He only had on the jeans from earlier, but had lost his socks and shirt at some point, so he had a bare chest as well. I blushed a little as my body just naturally reacted to how little clothing he had on.

"Mmmmmmmm...no," he replied groggily, beginning to move around on the bed and I felt bad then for waking him up like that; I should have let him do it on his own.

"I'm sorry," I apologized softly, trying to undo the damage. "You can go back to sleep if you want and I can leave you be," I offered right after, starting to scoot sideways off of the bed, but Ian's hand gripped my right thigh, effectively stopping all of my movements.

"Stay," Ian said right before emitting a long yawn. "Please stay."

"You will be able to sleep much better if I leave though," I protested, but instead of verbally answering me, Ian dug his feet into the mattress and pushed himself closer to me until his head was right beside my belly.

"I think that I would feel much better if you were with me," he replied, blearily while slowly using his first and middle fingers as legs and walked them across my stomach.

Ian's fingers started along the right side of my waist and made their way down to the hem of my t-shirt, where he used the same two fingers to drag it up towards my chest, revealing my entire mid-section. I felt a little uncomfortable being revealed to him in that kind of way, even though I didn't have a good reason to feel that way; it was just a natural reaction that I had. It also wasn't the first time that he had seen that part of my body either; I was just being silly about it.

"Relax," Ian whispered in a feather light voice as his breath tickled my skin, leaving a trail of goose bumps across my stomach as it ghosted over in its wake.

I tried very hard to follow his instructions, but the muscles underneath my skin tightened up just as soon as Ian's careful fingers touched me again. We both watched almost transfixed on his fingers as they crawled over to my belly button, dancing around it once before each finger dipped inside for a brief second. I involuntarily giggled then, as the feeling tickled a bit and I glanced down at Ian to see his eyes sparkling; the corners crinkled and his lips turned up in amusement so I knew that it was all good.

While Ian's fingers continued their journey across the left side of my belly, he began to move his whole body closer to mine. I felt him grip my back with the same right hand that had caressed me so gently and an orange beam of light lit up our room in the same instant that Ian's lips first touched my skin. I gasped and clenched my abdominal muscles at the sensation, finding that I liked it quite a bit. My hands began to move then, rising up to tangle themselves in Ian's already messed up hair from his slumber. It was in desperate need of a cit just like mine was and I made a mental note to fix that very soon.

Ian's lips were soft against my skin, leaving a trail of wet kisses while he traced the same path as his fingers had taken. I giggled out loud when Ian's lips encased my belly button and his tongue dipped inside, causing my stomach to jump up and down, bouncing Ian's head along with it; it simply tickled a lot.

"Are you okay? Am I hurting you?" Ian asked into my stomach, making me shiver in the process as his breath washed across me.

"I'm fine Ian, it just tickled a bit, that's all," I reassured him, patting the top of his head where my hands were already twisted in it.

"Hmmmm," he hummed in response, repeating the same action and it made me actually laugh out loud that time, the sound echoing through our room a lot louder than I had anticipated.

"I love your laugh," Ian murmured and I couldn't help but to smile as much as I wanted to roll my eyes and protest that it wasn't true; some things just weren't worth the effort.

"I love you,' I told him and even though it sounded cheesy to me, Ian didn't seem to think so at all.

Instead, Ian continued to kiss along the same trail that his fingers had previously taken, sucking on every inch of my skin over to the other side of my waist. After Ian finished that I thought that he was done with everything, but he continued his path by moving more towards my chest, kissing the skin right up to where he had lifted my shirt to before.

I noticed that my breathing began to shift when he got closer to my face and it was becoming more rapid, my chest rising and falling with a frequent pace. In a deeper part of my mind I knew that I should have been alarmed by that because I was always hyper aware of anything wrong so that it could be caught early, but another more rational part of my brain told me that it was okay. I subconsciously had convinced myself that it was only a natural reaction to Ian's closeness to me when we had moments like those.

"I love you too," Ian whispered back, touching the tips of our noses together and caressing the right side of my face with the backs of his knuckles, leaving a trail of fire in their wake. I instinctively turned my head into his touch and Ian mirrored the action, pressing his lips to my left ear in the process.

"One day, I promise you Wanda, I'm going to worship your entire body the way that it deserves to be," he told me, yet I was so caught up in the moment that I didn't think anything much about his little statement.

I responded to him in the only way that I knew how to right then; I kissed his still scruffy cheek tenderly and in the next instant it was replaced with Ian's soft lips. I jumped at the contact as I wasn't expecting it, but soon melted into the kiss. Ian lifted my upper body towards him as his arms slid into their usual positions behind my neck and shoulders.

"Do we have to get up at all?" I asked into his ear, making Ian shudder for once in his life.

"Mmmmmn, I wish that we didn't," he practically moaned and I felt his body shift on top of mine and something brushed against my lower body, sending hot sparks up and through my insides; a new sensation for me.

I nearly had myself convinced that we could indeed stay there, but then Ian's stomach emitted a rather large growl; so loud that I nearly felt his stomach rumbled with mine. I laughed out loud then, but it didn't last long for he covered my mouth with his, turning my giggles into a long, drawn out kiss and before long he was poking his tongue out and I immediately accepted it. Another growl interrupted us and I sighed in defeat.

"So, food then?" I inquired and Ian nodded reluctantly.

"Just so you know though I really don't want to leave at all," Ian told me, looking me right in the eyes to make sure that I knew what he was talking about.

"Of course," I replied softly right before I placed both of my palms flat on his bare chest and pushed up, indicating that he should get up. Ian luckily got the hint and released his hold on me to shove himself up to a kneeling position and then hopped to his feet beside the bed.

"Care to join me? I think that I might need some food in my belly," Ian said in a deep voice, rubbing his hands over his stomach to prove his point, so I giggled in response.

"I don't think that I have much of a choice here, do I?" I replied, sitting up and stretching my arms up and over my head, yawning at the same time.

When I opened my eyes up again, I noticed that Ian's eyes appeared to be a slight shade darker than usual and he was giving me a look that I'd never seen before. In an instant, the bed was shaking and Ian's hands cupped both of my cheeks while his lips pressed up against mine. I certainly didn't just sit there and I kissed him back just as equally to try and show my delight for him doing that; it felt like we were finally really getting back to where we should have been.

"Sorry," he gasped, trying to get his breathing under control.

"You don't have to apologize for that," I assured Ian, running my hand through the hair at the top of his head. "You really don't."

"Alright," he agreed. "But you really don't have any idea how you make me feel, do you?" he asked, tilting my head back to kiss the side of my neck, making me moan in response and I immediately felt embarrassed about that.

"Ian... food," I reminded him when his stomach growled loudly again.

"Mmmm... just a sec," he groaned, kissing my neck once more. "Okay, let's go," Ian finally agreed when it growled once more, climbing up off of the bed once more and holding his hand out for me to take.

"Are you sure that we don't have to talk more about why you kept me so in the dark?" I inquired, taking his hand and getting up onto my feet.

"Wanda, I will apologize to you for the rest of my life if I have to for that. I really, really didn't mean for it to happen like that at all. I just wanted to tell you know in my own way and kind of break the news to you gently. Not that I need to be so cautious around you or anything, but just so that you didn't..."

"Freak out? Run for the hills?" I suggested several alternatives and he adamantly shook his head back and forth quickly, a look of protest plastered across his features. "Anything of the sort?"

"No, no that's not it at all!"

"You know what, it's okay; forget that I even brought it up again. It's clear that I'll never be able to understand why you did it, so I'm sorry that I ruined a perfectly good moment," I told him with a bit of a flippant attitude, but it was only because I was frustrated with everything.

"I'm sorry that I can't explain it to you very well either Wanda. But please, _please_ just know that everything I did, or didn't do as the case may be, was for your own good. Ultimately, I wanted to protect you from what was out there in case that it was something bad. I'd rather sacrifice myself than have you go down again. We've been down that road and I'm not looking to go back there any time soon," Ian concluded, tapping his right pointer finger on the tip of my nose, ducking his head to look directly at me. "Comprede?"

"Yeah," I replied, nodding my head while internally beating myself up for wanting to bring it up again and then quickly getting upset when I still didn't understand. I took a few deep breaths to calm myself and clear my head before I beamed up at Ian, whose face was still clouded with different emotions.

"Sorry," I whispered, letting go of Ian's hand and slipping past him making a beeline towards the door.

"Wanda wait!" he called after me, probably taking only two long strides over to my side as he grabbed my wrist to stop all movements. "You don't have to apologize, love. If there's something more you want to ask me, or know please, by all means ask me. I really want us to be open with each other and honest because I feel that it's the only way to make a relationship work. So if you want to talk about this more, let's talk."

"I'm fine, Ian trust me," I told him, but apparently he wasn't believing that for he took another giant step; well, giant for me, to stand directly in front of me with his eyebrows raised. "What? It's fine."

"Are you sure?" I nodded my head, trying to get him to see that it was fine for me, but Ian was being stubborn. "Absolutely, positively?"

"Yes, Ian. One hundred percent sure."

"All right," he conceded after a considerable pause. It felt to me like he was searching my face specifically for that one flicker of doubt, but he never found it. I plastered another bright smile on my face and this time he believed it, sliding his right arm around my shoulders, effectively tucking me into his side, making my heart rate rapidly increase with the action.

"I wonder what there is to eat?" I asked out loud, trying to make conversation and diffuse the little silence that we had going on. Ian shrugged, opening the door as we slipped through and out into the hallway.

"I have no idea; hopefully something good though," Ian mused, rubbing his belly. "I'm starved."

"I can tell," I told him dryly, making him laugh which in turn made me laugh as well. Together we stumbled out of the hall into the fork, finding it completely empty.

"If you could eat anything in the whole entire world right now, what would it be?" I inquired, truly curious as to what he would come up with.

"Anything I wanted, eh?" he repeated with what I had come to know as his 'thinking voice'. It had a distinctive sound to it, and it was yet another quality that I loved about him.

"Well, there was this burger joint close to where I went to University in Pennsylvania that had _the best_ burgers I've ever had in my entire life; just don't tell Lucina that of she'll kill me," he added and I glanced up to see that Ian's entire face had lit up at the thought of this food. "It was just this little hole-in-the-wall greasy joint, but _man_ were they ever good. My mouth is literally watering just thinking about it."

"What did it taste like?" I asked, loving that he was so into the simple question.

"Tasted like awesomeness, that's all!" Ian laughed loudly and the sound carried through the passageway to the main cavern where we had to turn sideways to fit through the narrow opening.

I spotted about a dozen people working in the fields picking berries and smiled; fresh strawberries was something that I was looking forward to trying as Jeb had told me that they were an extremely rare commodity in the caves.

"No, but in all seriousness it was very greasy; basically a heart attack on a bun, but it was smothered in cheese and bacon and was massive," Ian held his hands up; fingers making a mock circle to demonstrate it. "The fries that came with it were always just slightly crispy; the ones on the bottom always crunchy and awesome. But the burger was just delicious."

"Sounds delicious?" I said, but it came out as more of a question than anything simply because I found it hard to relate his descriptions to anything that I had ever experienced during my two short lives on Earth.

"It's hard to describe unless you've tasted it," Ian shrugged again, waving with his free arm to someone who had stood up and looked over.

"Maybe we should go there the next time that we're out on a raid," I suggested and was instantly ground to a halt where I was standing.

"No. We're not going out on any more raids, without question. There are other people here that are more than capable of handling everything and I just don't want to risk losing you again. Call me possessive, but I don't want you to ever, ever leave my side again," he explained seriously.

"I feel the same way too, but how will everything get done?" I asked, wrapping my arm around Ian's waist in response to his little primal outburst.

"It just will; bottom line is that you don't have to worry about going out there again. If they were looking for you once, and found you, there is no saying what they would do if they found you again," I could tell that Ian was growing worried, so I did the boldest thing that I had possibly done in my life; besides lying to him on that raid, of course.

I stood up on the tips of my toes and kissed him right then and there in front of everyone who was standing in the same vicinity as us; I could feel their eyes on us, but I didn't care all that much. All that mattered to me was making sure that Ian was okay and that he would drop the little thing that he had going on. As much as it made me feel safe and secure to know that he was protecting me, I didn't want him to have to worry so much; if he said that I wasn't going out on any more raids, I would just have to accept that and move on. Truthfully, I wasn't exactly looking forward to going out there again anyways.

"Ian, please don't worry about a thing," I whispered once he broke away from me. "If you don't want me to go out there again, I won't; it's as simple as that."

"That's not what I mean; I don't want you to feel trapped in here or anything, but..." I interrupted him with another short kiss and felt the corners of his mouth turn up into a smile so I pulled back, raising my eyebrow at him.

"I don't feel that way, trust me."

"I think that I should have more of these conversations with you in public if this is how you're going to react," Ian teased me with a sparkle in his eye that had been missing as of late. I promptly turned a nice shade of pink and swivelled on the spot to walk away from him, finally noticing that three people were watching us from the distance but it was hard to see who they were; it just added to my embarrassment though.

"You shouldn't be ashamed of that fact, love," Ian said, his breath floating into my ear which made me shudder. "I like that you are becoming more and more bolder when you are with me; it drives me crazy."

I didn't say anything, but simply continued to walk along, averting my eyes from anyone who was potentially looking to save myself. I did notice the orange glow that was filtering through from above and bouncing off of the mirrors, indicating the time of day and I realized that we had essentially wasted just about all the hours of daylight possibly sleeping and not doing work.

I felt guilty as we drew nearer to the kitchen and the smell of food wafted towards us that I didn't do my job of the day, which was helping to make the food for dinner. I fully intended to apologize to whoever was on duty in there, as I felt horrible for sleeping through the majority of my shift.

"Mmmm chicken noodle soup," Ian commented, taking a deep breath. "I used to love it when my Mom made it for us when we were sick. This one with the canned chicken won't measure up by any means, but still."

Ian guided me forwards into the cavern and towards the back to grab our portions, but my mind was running a thousand miles an hour with idea after idea flowing through it. I was so distracted by what was floating around in there that I barely heard Ian calling my name until he physically grabbed my upper arm and gave it a squeeze.

"Hm? Oh, right. I'm sorry for missing my shift today, Lucina," I told her, trying to look her straight in the eyes and all that I got in response was a slight nod of the head from the woman who was dishing up our plates. "I will come in and work early tomorrow, I promise."

She didn't respond to that comment either and I sighed, just knowing that it was enough for her to even acknowledge the fact that I had spoken to her at all. Ian scooped up our steaming soup bowls while I grabbed the spoons and rolls of bread, letting him lead us back to a little perch near the edge of the room where we could eat. Once I had received my food from him, I smiled before sitting back and picking at my roll, waiting for my soup to cool down a little bit; Ian on the other hand had dug right in.

My mind began to wander then, thinking more about what I had been pondering before and I had essentially made up my mind about what to do by the time that my soup cooled down enough to eat normally. I finished off the majority of it pretty quickly so that it didn't get cold and wordlessly slid the remains in Ian's direction.

"Are you sure that you're done? I don't want you to go hungry later," he said, sounding concerned but I simply rolled my eyes at him and threw the remainder of my bread into the bowl as well, watching it soak up the liquid.

"Ian, I'm fine. I wouldn't pass it to you unless I was for sure full; promise," I told him, touching my right index finger to his left cheek, which was easily in reach. Just as I knew he would, Ian polished off the rest of my food; he was literally my human vacuum cleaner for things like that.

"What should we do now?" he asked me as I collected the bowls and stacked them, ready to walk them back to the kitchen to put them in the wash bin with everything else.

"Well, I kind of want to go and track down Mel to ask her about something so..." I was interrupted by a shout from the door and I jumped before turning to see what the commotion was about.

"There you are! Thought you had died or something," Brandt tried to joke with Ian, as he would never in a million years speak to me in that way; it was a stretch that he was even doing it in my presence, but that was okay.

"Yeah, yeah," Ian replied, placing his arm protectively around my shoulders, bringing me closer to him no matter how hard I tried to pull away; it seemed as though he was trying to make a point, but I really didn't want to be dragged into the middle of anything that concerned Brandt. "What do you want?"

"The girl down there is asking for you. Megan, I think it is? Jeb said that we could go and get you after the sun had gone down and it's just about there; we can't take her whining anymore though," he informed Ian, who shook his head in response.

"Is that okay with you if I go to see what's up?" Ian turned to me then and I looked up, nodding insistently.

"Why wouldn't it be okay? She's your friend, you should go and see what she wants," I told him, shrugging my shoulders and pulling away from him in another useless bid to give him and Brandt some space.

"Well, I just don't want to leave you alone much now is all," Ian countered and I rolled my eyes at him; he was being too protective for the circumstances.

"It's fine; like I said earlier, I was going to find Melanie to tell her something. You go on ahead and I'll be with her until you get back if that makes you a little less worried or whatever," I answered, smiling brightly so that he would see that I really would be okay on my own.

"All right," he finally conceded, kissing my forehead and I could faintly hear Brandt groan from behind him. "But at least let me help you with the dishes first."

"Oh please, Ian! I can handle them all on my own!" I practically cried, snatching the bowls and spoons out of his reach so that he wouldn't have a chance to get a hold of them. "It's not like it's anything strenuous or anything."

"Then let me come and find Melanie with you and then I'll go down and see what Megan wants," he tried again, but I shook my head firmly.

"No. You go with Brandt now and I will get rid of the bowls _and_ go find Mel all by my self. I'm a big girl you know; I can handle that sort of thing all on my own," I said with a giggle and a little shove to get him going in the right direction. I didn't want to hold up Brandt any longer, for I really feared what he might do to me.

"Okay! Fine, fine, fine, I give up," Ian said, standing up and I rose beside him. "I will be as fast as possible though and be right back to you though," he vowed, leaning closer to me and I stood up straighter to accept the kiss that he planted on my lips before turning to Brandt and the two of them set off.

"Take your time! There's no rush!" I called after Ian's retreating back, shaking my head in disbelief; there was no reason for him to be so defensive when it came to me; it wasn't like these new humans had been let free and were after me or anything.

Sighing, I trudged back to where Lucina was waiting with the bin for me to drop the dishes off. I did so and offered a smile, which she returned, shocking the pants off of me. Today was certainly a day for surprises, I decided, setting off to find Mel.

**A/N: The only reason this is late is because my brothers are home from school and used up our allotted internet maximum for July and I was waiting for it to reset before I could post! Blame them!**

**I've also posted a sweet interview from the cast of VD from Comic Con over the weekend on my profile, so check it out! **

**Ummmm what else? Oh! Infinitus was last week, which is a big Potter-Con and it seemed like so much fun! One of my friends went and had a blast, so I'm going to the one in 2010. Useless info, but still...**

**How is your summer going?  
Review : )**


	10. Starting All Over

**Believe it or not, but I haven't had internet since my last update... it's been stupid, but it's over with now. So I just kept writing. Sorry for the delay!**

**Thanks to Bloomerica, ladaane, piccolover22, twihardhannah, oohapoo, jediahsokaroxx, .xx, Miss WolfGirl10, gaararoks and CrazyLady97 for your reviews!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own The Host or any of its characters; they belong to the lovely Stephenie Meyer. I do however, own the plot.**

**Melanie POV**

"Go Jared, go Jared! Go, go, go Jared!" I cheered from the sidelines of the soccer match that I was watching down in the 'games cave' as it had been dubbed by some of us. Kyle had jokingly challenged Jared to a match, but he had taken it very seriously and led us to the game after dinner. Jared was winning so far, but it wasn't quite half-time yet so there was still a lot of playing time.

I had tried to convince Sunny to come down and watch, but she had flat out refused, saying that she wanted to help Jeb with the strawberry harvest or something equally as boring compared to anything soccer related in my eyes. On the other hand, I wasn't entirely sure that Kyle would have wanted her there to see the pummelling that was happening to him.

No less than five minutes later, or so I was assuming, I called them in for half-time so that the boys could rest up a bit and have something to drink.

"Awe, come on Mel! Do we have to stop?" Jared whined from all the way across the field. It was very dark in there, so I didn't answer right away to get my point across and within two minutes I heard footsteps trekking across the dirt towards me.

"Yes you have to stop," I answered Jared after I'd handed the boys a water bottle and watched as Jared downed nearly half of his in under thirty seconds. "You need a... uh... rest for a minute."

I had a small lantern with me to illuminate at least some of the cavern and the sight of a sweaty, dirt covered Jared guzzling a water bottle while half of it dribbled down his chin made me want to lick it up, but I refrained from doing so. The light made his skin glow and lit up all the beads of sweat that fell and I watched one with my eyes as it made its way down from Jared's chin to the top of his shorts. They had long ago ditched their shirts as it was ludicrously hot in there, especially while running around like a bunch of fools.

"Are you sure that you brought your A-game there, Kyle?" Jared taunted him, tossing the now empty bottle to the side where it fell against the stone floor with an echoing clank.

"Jared, quit teasing him," I reprimanded him, cuffing the back of Jared's head for good measure as well. "There's still another half to go anyways, maybe he's just trying to wear you out first, you old man." I winked at Kyle who laughed out loud then.

"Yeah, how do you know that's not my game plan, _old man_," he stressed and shook his head, casting his bottle to the side too. "How much resting time do you need there, gramps?"

"I'm good if you're good," Jared countered and I noticed the familiar competitive glint in his eyes and knew that he was raring to go again. Kyle simply had to nod before the two of them tore off back to centre field again to start over.

I sighed and sat down, willing to watch the rest of the testosterone-filled match while conserving my own energy. I really shouldn't have been tired since I had slept most of the day away, but I supposed that was how it went; my body hadn't fully recovered from missing a full night's sleep. I had imagined pulling all-nighters once I had made it to college, but that was in a totally different lifetime; now I was missing sleep to find out if people were still human or not.

"Oh, how the world turns," I said to myself, crossing my legs Indian-style and leaning back on the palms of my hand, tossing my hair over my shoulders with a flick of my head.

I watched them for several minutes until I heard my name being called from a fair distance away through the tunnel that led to the cavern. I ignored it for as long as I could, not wanting to do any sort of work that day; in fact, I was absolutely determined to say no if the call was for work at all. As the soft voice got closer to me, and Kyle actually got around Jared and on a breakaway, I recognized the voice as Wanda's and answered her immediately without taking my eyes off of my sources of entertainment.

"Mel, are you down here?" I heard her ask from my left and turned my head to see her standing timidly in the entranceway.

"Yeah, I'm over here by the light," I replied, smiling and hoping that she could see it in the limited light that we had. "Come on over, you're missing one heck of a game."

I turned my attention back towards the sweaty men duelling it out on the field as Wanda slowly made her way over to my side. She stopped and I waited to see if she would sit with me and I was about to tell her to pop-a-squat when she gently folded herself down to the dirt beside me.

"So how goes it?" I asked right before cheering as Jared kicked the ball toward Kyle's net and the latter had to boogy his ass to get back in time to make the save. "Did you have a nice sleep?"

"Yeah, it was good I suppose," Wanda replied, sighing a bit. "I just feel guilty sleeping all day and not doing any work at all around here; it seems almost criminal."

"Eh," I shrugged, looking at Wanda then. "We all need a day off every now and again."

"You guys keep saying that, but I'm wondering when it will be that we run out of these days off," she commented and I rolled my eyes at her; a useless thing to do when she wouldn't be able to see the gesture at all.

"Wanda, before all it happened, North Americans got two weeks holidays, plus some sick days here and there that they could take off if needed. Australians and I think people from New Zealand got ridiculous amounts of days off; something like six weeks a year or something, I forget. The point is that you should think of us down here as Australians; we get to take a lot of days off," I concluded, trying to sound smart, but it was probably dumb in Wanda's eyes, she was the smarty pants around here.

"I guess," she said, her small voice fading quietly into nothing. We sat in silence for a few moments, other than the grunts and groans and panting from Jared and Kyle as they chased each other all around the place for the ball.

"Who's winning?" she asked and I smirked.

"Jared, of course," I replied coolly, like it wasn't a big deal that my man was in the lead or anything.

"Kyle will be mad about that one," Wanda commented and I laughed while nodding my head, totally agreeing with her.

"He sure will."

"Mel, I actually came to talk to you about something, but if you don't have the time right now, I totally understand," Wanda told me and I sat up straight again to turn my full attention on to her.

"Wanda, I've always got the time for you," I told her sincerely and I truly meant it; I would always drop anything I was doing for her just like I knew how she would do it for me.

"Well, it's just that I know that you're having fun watching them play and all and..."

"Wanda, stop!" I interrupted the girl, laughing at her silliness. "They're just being a bunch of stupid, sweaty boys right now trying to show off to each other. I could do with a little less of that in my day and a little more girl time with you. Now, do you want to stay here and talk or go somewhere quieter?"

"Quieter please, if you don't mind," Wanda added quickly, but I had already stood up on my feet and jammed them back into my sandals by that point.

"I'm leaving with Wanda!" I called out to Jared, knowing that he would for sure hear me in the otherwise quiet room.

"'Kay!" he replied seconds later, a little breathless. "Where will you be?"

"Uhh, not sure," I told him, shrugging my shoulders and looking down at Wanda who did the same thing. "Just come and find us when you're done. There are extra bottles and towels over here and I'll leave the light for you. And I promise that I won't squeal if you happen to have another break in there sometime."

"Whatever, Melanie!" Jared called out before cursing as Kyle got around him once more. We stood to watch as Jared didn't catch up to him and Kyle ended up scoring a goal; Wanda and I cheered loudly for and Jared flipped us the bird.

"Let's go," I said to her, laughing at their stupid antics. "We'll find somewhere out of the way then, shall we?"

"Yes please!" she answered me and hooked her arm in my elbow as we walked out of the cave. "How about the schoolroom?" Wanda suggested once we were farther up the tube. "It should be deserted at this time of night."

"Sure," I told her, nodding my head. "Only you'll have to show me where it is, I have no idea."

"You've seriously never been to the school room?" Wanda asked in total disbelief. "Never pulled Jamie out of class?"

"Never ever been there," I swore to her without actually swearing and this time it was Wanda's turn to laugh at me. "Yeah, yeah. Laugh all you want there, Wanda but it's the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth."

I then basically stood back as Wanda took charge for once in her short human life and led the way to the school room and I would _never_ have found it if it weren't for her. The room turned out to be in the most remote place and the passageway to get there was incredibly narrow and had many twists and turns; a claustrophobic person would have had a hell of a time getting there. Mind you, a claustrophobic person would have a hell of a time getting anywhere within the confines of our living quarters anyhow.

Wanda awkwardly stood in the doorway for a minute or two, kind of hesitating to see if anyone was for sure inside there or not. Clearly there wasn't as it was after 'school' hours anyways, but I was very surprised that no one was using it for a little quieter session. It was certainly well out of the way, but I supposed that it was too bright in there for that. I really needed to start thinking about things other than that, but it appeared to be something that was easier said than done in that department.

"It's empty," she announced even though I already knew that. I also realized once I stepped through the door that I should have known where this place was from the memories that I still had of Wanda being in my body. Curiously though, I had no recollection of it. That fact freaked me out a tad because I didn't know what else I'd forgotten; how would I if I'd forgotten it.

"Wanda, is it possible for a host to forget about some of the things that they experienced when they previously had a soul in them?" I asked her, trying to be as non-chalant about it, so I bit the nail on my thumb to seem cooler, I supposed.

"I've never heard of it happening before," Wanda answered me thoughtfully, looking all pensive and innocent. "But then again, nobody's really ever heard of or studied host bodies after the soul has been removed. Well, hosts that are still alive anyways."

Her response only somewhat quieted my fears as it was still very weird for me to accept that I'd forgotten that fact, but it did help me to realize what the hell I was doing to my nails and stopped that right away. I had been working too hard on re-growing them since Wanda had chewed them all off for me to destroy them in seconds like that. I assessed the damage, which was minimal, and placed my hands behind my back to avoid any further temptation to rip the crap out of them.

"Um... okay, new topic. What did you want to ask me that you had to drag me all the way down here for?" I inquired, wanting to change the subject away from the morbid thoughts that were starting to creep into my mind. When she mentioned the whole 'none that are still alive' thing, it got me thinking about death and how they probably just discarded the bodies that were no longer used or something.

"I'm so sorry if I inconvenienced you in any way, Mel. I wasn't thinking about what you could have, or did have planned for this evening and..." she was apologizing for dumb things, but luckily I was able to silence her with just one look. It was the same one that I used on just about everyone and had the same affect of silencing them; except Jeb of course, the one where I simply raised one eyebrow in a 'stern' face.

"Continue please," I nodded at Wanda who was nervously fiddling with the hem of her shirt, silver eyes glancing wildly around the room presumably for people sneaking up on us. She was silent for a few more moments as the room began to get progressively darker in the dimming sunlight and I took the opportunity to walk the three steps closer to her and sit in a chair right by her side.

"I don't mean to be so secretive, but I just wanted to run something by you without him around; he has a good track record a finding me," she began and I was immediately concerned and a little confused.

"Wait. Are you telling me that you're sick of Ian?" I asked, feeling a little sick myself at the thought of them breaking up; they were just so good for each other.

"What? No, no, no, no, no," Wanda panicked then, her eyes wide as she fervently shook her head back and forth so fast that her blonde hair was like a whip around her head. In fact, if I looked close enough, I could see tears forming behind her eyelids. I scrambled right away to stand up and undo the damage I'd clearly caused her.

"Wanda, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to imply that at all, it was just the vibe that I was getting from you," I apologized, trying my hardest to convey with my eyes how sorry I was that I had messed up.

"It's okay, Mel," she tried to reassure me, sniffing up her snot and placing her right hand on my arm, giving me a watery smile. "I know you didn't mean to upset me, and you really didn't. It was just the thought of breaking up with Ian that freaked me out. I just love him so much that it would kill me if that ever happened.

The whole time she talked about Ian, Wanda's round face shined with pure love for him. I really did feel bad about what I had implied, but I was at least relieved that they weren't splitting up. They really needed each other and not to break up, and I was an idiot so I just hugged her tightly as best as I could.

"Okay, continue then," I instructed, sitting back down and motioning with my left hand for her to carry on with what she was saying before. In that motion, my ring caught the last sliver of light in the room and made the diamonds sparkle off of the rock walls around us, making my heart leap with joy at the thought of eventually being married to Jared.

Wanda giggled a little bit before finally explaining.

"Well, you know how you guys talk about your old lives all of the time?" I nodded, a little nervous about what was coming next, but I could see in the dusk light that Wanda was practically bouncing with excitement. "What if you guys were able to get those lives back? What would you say?"

"I'd say that it's totally impossible and that you're crazy," I told her truthfully, shrugging my left shoulder up to my ear. "In a good way, of course."

"I've been doing a lot of thinking about this subject lately and I may have come up with a viable solution. It would take a lot of time and energy, and there are a lot of kinks to iron out, but please just hear me out first."

She looked so damned cute when she was worried, so I gave Wanda a great bug toothy grin to hopefully placate her; assuming that she could see my gesture in the twilight.

"I'm all ears, pinkie promise," I swore, holding out my right pinkie finger which she took while giggling again and we made it official.

"So, you know how before when they were bringing back souls to try and figure out how to do an extraction but it always turned out wrong?" I nodded, trying to encourage Wanda to keep going because I truly was interested in knowing where she was going with this.

"What if we were to bring back humans with souls, extract the souls to send them off-planet and then integrate them into our community; you know, make them feel welcome and all." Wanda had begun to pace back and forth in front of me so I crossed my legs underneath of my body to wait it out right until she was finished.

"If we let them in until we got enough people, then we can put everyone back in society and see what happens. Then hopefully with enough time, humans and souls will be able to love together and you can all have your lies back. Well, as least you can live as close to normal as you can get."

I was silent for a few seconds while I thought it over, so Wanda was silent as well. My initial reaction was excitement at the prospect of owning a house with Jared and actually having a shower, a tv, a couch, hell, even a toilet that I could use whenever I wanted. The more I thought abou tit however, the more questions I came up with until the rational side of my brain won over and I bit my lip at bringing them up to Wanda but I figured that she would be open to it.

"Aren't there a few things to work out first though? Like the issue of space? How would we fit a lot of people in here? This plan would surely take a fair amount and we barely have enough room for all of us in here at the moment to begin with," I pointed out even though I _really_ wanted to make her idea work. Now that Wanda had planted that seed in my head, it was really hard to think of anything else than getting the hell out of the caves and into the real world once again; this time to stay there permanently.

"I know, I know that there are a lot of things to think about, but I was thinking that if I was able to convince the other rebel clans to help me out, that would boost our numbers and spread out the humans. We wouldn't want to put everyone out in the same area because that would be dangerous, depending on how they're received by the souls out there so that's what I was thinking about that one, at least. It's a long shot, but if we're all united in a common goal then it might work out better."

"That's true," I mused, trying to sound intellectual about it, but a few seconds later my facade broke and I smiled widely at her. "I think that its' a wonderful idea, Wanda! A little large scale, but if it works then it would certainly be worth it!"

Wanda literally sighed in what was probably relief and broke out into a huge grin as well.

"Just one question though," I prompted and she nodded away, still looking thankful that I had embraced her suggestion.

"Anything, Mel. You know that!"

"What does Ian think of your plan?"

As soon as I asked her that question all of the brightness and smiles that had lit up her face immediately disappeared, leaving her face darkened and a little guilty at the same time.

"Well, that's what I meant by running it by you first, Mel. I haven't told him just in case that he flips out or something or he doesn't think that it's a good idea and squashes it so I wanted to let you in on it first. I don't know what I was thinking, to be completely honest with you. He's going to kill me, isn't he?"

She began to pace back a forth in front of me, clenching her small hands, twisting them together before running them in her hair. Wanda grabbed her hair at the roots and tugged three times, looking like she was beating herself up internally over what I had just brought up. I tilted my head to the side, watching her react to this.

"Wanda? Quit berating yourself over it. Ian won't care, trust me, he'll just want to know what's on your mind because it's probably been driving him crazy; you're good at that, you know," I tried to make a joke out of it, but she was too far gone for that. "He'll still love you, you know."

"Will he?" Wanda turned to me, shaking her head when I realized that the sky had darkened for the night. I looked up and the stars were overhead, the moon shining brightly.

"Has he ever given you a reason to think that otherwise? I mean, other than the obvious time when he was doubting it, but can you really blame him? He..."

"That was totally my fault and I'll admit to that in a heartbeat, you know. He said something to me the other day that I didn't understand, Mel and I don't know how to take that," she said stopping the pacing at least, turning to me.

"Well, Wanda tell me what he said. Let me help you, help yourself," I patted the desk by my side and she plunked herself down in a rather unceremonious kind of way still looking a bit frazzled about everything. I touched her arm as a way to comfort her and Wanda immediately melted into my side so I wrapped my arm around her shoulders.

"This morning we were lying in bed together, having a moment, whatever when he told me that he was going to 'worship my entire body the way that it deserves to be' if that's supposed to mean anything at all."

I would have laughed my head off at her because she was so worked up again about a little statement like that but because I was such a good friend I kept my big fat mouth shut and smiled to myself instead.

"Wanda, it means that he wants to sleep with you."

"But we already sleep together every night, I still don't understand what he means by wanting to sleep together," I groaned and leaned my head down on top of hers in defeat; if she really didn't understand me after my next explanation I really didn't know what I was going to do with her.

"Not like that kind of sleeping," I sighed. "Like the kind of sleeping together that you do, but you're not actually sleeping. Like, the kind that you're awake for, you know?"

"Are you talking about when we lie away and talk like how we were doing this morning? There were some kisses exchanged, but for the most part he was just holding me and stuff and..."

"No. I'm talking about the kind of sleeping that you do with all of your clothes off and there is lots of kissing and touching and stuff," I said kind of bluntly, but it was the honest truth and if she couldn't take it then she clearly wasn't ready to do it with Ian.

"You mean...? Ohhhhh," she finally understood and I allowed myself to laugh then, easing the little moment that she probably thought was embarrassing; I just knew her all too well.

I knew that her face would be as red as a cherry tomato so I allowed her a few moments to collect her thoughts before I lifted my head up and she followed my motion. As I looked down Wanda's little face it was clear that I was right about the whole blushing thing as there was only a little tinge of red left over from what I was sure was an awesome blush.

"You finally get it?" I inquired, smiling down at Wanda who slowly nodded her head a few times, practically gnawing on her bottom lip.

"I sure got it," she replied, looking nervous again so I rolled my eyes.

"Listen. You don't have to do anything that you're not ready for. Don't argue with me, but that's the way that it is, okay? It's your body and your mind so you get do what you want with it; don't let Ian push you into anything. If he does, you tell me and I'll kick his ass," I promised Wanda and her eyes immediately widened with the mention of any sort of violence directed at Ian. "Fine, you tell me, I'll tell Jared as much as he needs to know and I'll let Jared kick his ass at something, but not literally because I know that you'll freak out, kay?"

"Okay," Wanda agreed while giggling, which I took as a good sign that she was recovering from it, I just hoped that I would never have to actually go through with what I had sworn to her because that would suck majorly.

"Melanieeeeeee!" I could hear Jared hollering my name from afar, but his big loud voice echoed through the caverns and passageways like he was always carrying a bull horn or something. On one hand, it made finding him that much easier, but he also had a tendency to say things louder than he really should.

"I suppose that's for me then," I commented, standing up right away and shaking my hair out behind me as a reflex motion; now that it was growing out nicely I could do things like that again.

"Yeah, you'd better go to whoever is calling you," Wanda told me, nodding her pretty little head in the direction of the doorway.

"You're coming with me, missy; no 'if's', 'and's' or 'but's' about it, you hear?" I extended my right arm towards Wanda, who looked a bit apprehensive but took it anyways and followed me out of the room once I'd hauled her up out of her seat and started walking towards the ever echoing sound of my name being called out.

Jared shouted out my name once more so I decided to play with him a little bit, winking at Wanda before I called out,

"Polo!" giggling to myself. Wanda only looked confused until I explained that it was a game that kids everywhere used to play mostly in the pool and stuff; then she was giggling along with me when a resounding 'Marco' was heard.

"Polo!" I exclaimed again and Jared and I shared the exchange four more times before I spotted him in a common area, standing there looking down the wrong passageway for me. I saw my opportunity, pressed my right index finger to my lips in the universal 'sh' motion to Wanda and crept up behind Jared. I managed to launch myself, using cat-like reflexes leapt silently off of the ground and pounced on top of Jared's back.

"What the hell?" Jared cried out, obviously blindsided by my excellent ambush as he tried to get me off of him, shaking his torso back and forth but I held strong.

"Relax, it's just me," I whispered into his ear and watched as Jared shook his head back and forth. He then reached behind his back to link his strong arms in the crooks of my knees in order to hold me in a piggy back so that I didn't fall to the ground when my legs gave out.

"How'd the rest of the game go?" I asked, resting my head on Jared's back and closing my eyes, breathing in his familiar smell; I was home again and that's all that I needed.

"I won, of course. By a landslide, babe you should have seen it," Jared told me with a chuckle, patting my left thigh. "Tired?"

"Extremely, but I don't know why, I mean I slept practically all day Jare," I said to him.

"It's fine Mel. I'll just take you to our room before I go and take a bath. I don't know how you're able to stand being attached to me like this because I smell," he joked and I giggled pathetically.

"It's just because I love you so much," I replied and was delighted when I heard Jared's heart rate increase with those words.

"Well, no normal girl would be able to stand it," he pointed out, starting to walk away and that was when I picked my head up to tell Wanda where we were going but she was already gone. I hoped that she'd gone to find Ian and tell him about her excellent plan; the sooner she got started, the sooner we'd all be out of there faster than a speeding bullet.

"Guess I'm not a normal girl," I quipped, practically waiting for Jared to figure out a comeback to that one, but he never did. Another day, then.

**Ian POV**

I didn`t get to watch Wanda walk away from me before I left the kitchen with Brandt as I could tell that his patience was already running thin at being around her, which I understood to a point and I didn't want to push him any further than I already had. I experimented with him by wrapping my arm around Wanda and pulling her closer to me when he came up to us simply to see what Brandt's reaction would be to it. I noticed his jaw tighten almost immediately and he kept his sentences short so I knew that he wasn't totally over himself yet.

"So are you on babysitting duty then?" I asked as we walked; well I walked and Brandt more marched ahead of me along the way.

"Unfortunately so. Your little friend is driving me crazy though; she keeps talking out loud to her friends about all kinds of shit and how she wants to talk to you. I'm like this close from taking her back to where we found them and leaving her to her own devices," Brandt told me, illustrating his point by holding his thumb and index fingers about half an inch apart.

"Well, she always was a bit brazen in her own way. Sorry for that," I half assed my apology, not really feeling sorry for how she was reacting as I clapped a hand down on his shoulder.

"Yeah yeah, whatever," he replied, shrugging my hand off of him.

"Is everything okay?" I asked, wondering when he had changed so much. The Brandt that I remembered from before Wanda and Mel had arrived at our home was much more care-free and a funny guy to be around. He didn't care much for Kyle, but then again, who really did because the guy was a jackass but he and I had always gotten along. It kind of hurt to see our friendship go down the drain like that.

"Really?" Brandt turned around to face me, walking backwards at the same time. "You're really asking me if I'm okay?"

"Well, yeah. You seem very... uptight," I concluded shrugging my shoulders at him and Brandt shook his head.

"Well, yes I am okay. And if you're going to go all 'Bromance' on me, I'm going to kick ass so hard that you'll end up in the next century wondering what the hell you're doing there," he threatened, but I didn't laugh for it was clear that Brandy was really being serious about everything right that second.

"I'm not doing that, I was just wondering, that's all Brandt," I said, holding my hands up in the universal surrender position. "I'm being serious about that as well. As serious as a heart attack."

"Screw you," he said, shaking his head. "I'm off anyways. You can find your own way to the stupid place where she's at. Don't tell Jeb that I'm leaving you alone because technically I'm supposed to be there with you but I've had enough and I need a break. I'll be back eventually."

"Sure, Brandt, whatever," I said and he nodded before trotting off and I set off for Megan, still wondering what the hell she wanted with me.

On the way there, I made up my mind that if she started in about anything to do with Wanda and how she shouldn't be there, I was taking off. I didn't need to hear that shit; I got enough of it from Wanda herself when she was feeling particularly bad about herself. I hated it then, and I _especially_ hated it when others said that too, it struck a nerve in me that I didn't understand no matter what I did.

Nobody seemed to notice me as I walked through the passageways and it was almost too easy to slip down the storage tunnel. Brandt had obviously left a handy little solar light by the entrance which I quickly grabbed, turned on and went down the tunnel. It struck me as odd as I got closer that there was no sound at all from the people who were supposed to be in there so I started to jog down the path, only to remember that it was totally plausible to think that they could be sleeping at that time of day. There was no light, after all and according to Wanda the concept of day and night completely disappears down there.

"If that's you, jackass stay the hell away from us," a deep male voice called out from farther down because he could hear my footsteps echoing off of the walls around me; there was nothing else to listen to so of course they would know that I was coming. I assumed from his little speech that he was referring to Brandt and I speculated that, only because I didn't know who else had been placed on guard duty down there.

"I'm here to speak with Megan," I announced prior to turning on my lamp just to be sure that they weren't going to rush me as soon as the light was turned on thinking that I was Brandt.

"_Finally_," she commented as the light illuminated the small space and I easily spotted her sitting with her back up against the wall, both literally and figuratively; she looked pissed off. "What the hell has taken you so long?"

"I was sleeping until not too long ago and then I had dinner and then Brandt came to find me, so don't give me that attitude. What was it that you wanted anyways?" I explained to the point as I knew the kind of mood that she was in and I didn't want to put up with her whininess at all.

"I just want to know when we can leave this shithole and get on with our lives," she said, looking right up at me. "That other guy wouldn't give me an answer and was just being a jerk so I kept asking for you so that you can bust me out of here."

"Hey!" a man standing on my left shouted at her and I stared straight at him but it didn't seem to affect him at all.

"Fine, bust _us_ out of here; happy?" she revised her statement accordingly and the man didn't say anything more but I heard his heavy footsteps retreat from our immediate area. "So how soon until we can get out of here?"

"First of all, I can't _bust_ any of you out of here; I'd be in serious trouble if I did and I don't want to get into any more trouble if that's okay with you," I told her and she rolled her eyes, shaking her head up to the rocky ceiling above us. "You've got to wait until Jeb feels comfortable enough that you're not going to either run screaming from this place or try to kill Wanda once you're out there."

"Seriously? You're still talking about that soul like she's human, Ian. I don't like that one bit. She shouldn't even be living in the same area as humans; that's not what she's built for. I don't know what's so 'special' about this one, but in my opinion, she has to go back to where she's come from. How do you ever expect to get out if she's in here; the first opportunity she gets she's going to rat everyone out ," she bit back at me, which got my temper flaring like it usually did when Wanda was put down like that, especially when it was behind her back.

"Stop it!" I shouted at her, listening to the sound reverberate through the cave. Megan looked shocked at the fact that I had actually yelled at her and her mouth flapped open uselessly over and over again. "That is exactly the kind of behaviour that will keep you down in here all cooped up like a dog. Wanda is not like the others and if you can't even begin to accept that, there is no way in hell that you're going to be able to join us, ever."

"I just don't get how you're able to live comfortably with her hanging around," one of the other men piped up as he walked closer to us, standing in the light from my lamp. "Aren't you scared out of your mind that she'll give you all up?"

"At first she wasn't exactly welcome around here, and I actually tried to strangle her with my own hands, but that's a whole other story," I told them, calming myself down by picturing Wanda lying beside me in our bed, smiling and looking beautiful. At the same time, my hands burned from the memory of strangling Wanda way back when.

"Well, we've certainly got the time, you can tell us this story of yours," the same man practically instructed me and I frowned at his manner.

"Matt, don't be like that. Do you really honestly want to hear about a stupid soul like that?" Megan asked and I made up my mind. Wordlessly, I sat down on the floor and scooted back so that I was resting against the wall. I then held out my hand in a silent invitation for them to sit with me and they did, but only after a moment's hesitation.

I started at the beginning of when Wanda and Mel came to us and how everything went down, before I even introduced the fact that Sunny was living with us as well. Megan and Matt looked horrified once I started talking about integrating Wanda into the community and I honestly thought that she was going to vomit when I told them about my feelings for her. A sound of disgust was heard from my left when I told them that I was in love with the soul and not the body and another man came to sit with us while another stood a little ways away from us, but was still listening in on us.

My throat was hoarse and sore by the time I finished our little sorrowed tale, even including those difficult months when Wanda was away from me and after that, making sure to stress the reasons why a number of times to let it sink in to them. It was quiet in the room when I finished and the lamp was beginning to dim; it must have been an older one because they didn't hold their power nearly as well as the newer ones.

"How do you believe that she really wants to stay here though?" the new man to the group asked me and I got a good look at him; he was older with gray hair and his eyes indicated that he's seen a lifetime of sadness.

"I just have faith in the love that she has for me and for our community. I saw how much it destroyed her to be away from us once, and there is no doubt in my mind that she will ever want to leave again. Like I said, she did it to protect us, which is a hell of a lot more than most souls living with humans would ever do," I shrugged and Matt scoffed.

"Most souls don't live with humans; it's not natural. We're supposed to be here, not them."

"Believe what you want, but if you ever want out of this cave then you'd better start to change your attitude. I'm telling you, we'll keep you down here as long as we have to in order to ensure the safety of our family here," I said, standing up and getting ready to leave, grabbing the lamp and such. I wanted to get back to Wanda; it sounded pretty wimpy of me, but I missed her like crazy especially talking about her for that long.

Nobody moved once I started walking except the older guy who had joined us later on when he jogged after me and grabbed my arm to stop my movements.

"I'm Ethan, by the way," he introduced himself, holding out his hand which I shook right away. "I just wanted to say that I know what it feels like to lose the one that you love for any amount of time and it sucks."

"It sure does," I agreed, nodding my head and he smiled a tight-lipped smile at me.

"I'm not sure where I stand on the whole situation that you've got going on out there, but I can accept that you would do anything for this Wanda, even if it means keeping the ones who will hurt her out of the way like this. Megan will come around, I wouldn't worry about that. And I think that Matt and Derek will too, just not be really accepting, but enough to get the hell out of here. We really just want to live peaceful lives until God intervenes and takes us on in our next lives."

"I... yeah. Well, thanks man," I told him, nodding and walking away from him up the tunnel. He seemed like a nice dude, but one could never really tell with them.

Aaron was waiting just around the corner in the Y-split of the tunnels, apparently waiting for me to finis because he started back down the same was that I'd just come from. Instead of dwelling much on the conversation that I'd just had with that Ethan guy, I trotted off to find someone else to talk to; perhaps Jeb or someone to tell them that most of the people down there weren't ready to come out. As bad as that sounded, I really wanted everyone to be safe, not just Wanda, but the others as well.

When I exited the passage I spotted Jeb hanging around with Maggie and a few others so I set off in his direction; but then I scanned the entire space around me and noticed Wanda seated on the ground beside Jamie. I weighed my options right then and there; do I interrupt Jeb and his little circle that he had going on with Maggie, Doc, Trudy and Lucina, or do I just go over to Wanda and leave it for another day?

Wanda laughed then and it made up my mind for me; I scurried off in her direction, unable to stop smiling as I got closer and closer to her. She was sitting right on the dirt beside the strawberries while Jamie began to pick the ones that were ripe and tossing them into a basket. I observed as she picked off a few and threw them in as well. Wanda laughed and the sound was music to my ears; she tossed her head right back and her blonde hair flowed over her shoulders perfectly. She hadn't had it cut in a long time and the length looked beautiful on her, in my humble opinion, anyways.

"I hope that you're eating some of them as well, Wanda," I spoke to her, smirking as I sat down on the ground beside her. Wanda shook her head and smiled at me so I reached my right arm around her to pick a berry right off of the vine and plopped it in my mouth.

"I haven't tried one, I'm waiting for everyone else to have one first," she answered me, smiling a beautiful smile at the same time.

"Have you ever eaten a strawberry before, ever?" Jamie asked her, sounding a little bit sceptical of what her answer might have been.

"Not in my life here. Pet was allergic to them, so there aren't any memories from her to help with scent or taste, either," she answered truthfully, shrugging her shoulders apologetically while staring right at me with her big silver eyes.

"You've got to be kidding me," Jamie replied, looking positively dumbfounded at the notion, so I pecked her cheek to make Wanda feel a little better.

"Here," I offered, placing my legs around her body and wrapping my left arm around her mid section to reach around and blindly pluck a berry off for her. "Try it, you'll love it."

"I really don't think that I should..." she said apprehensively, but I silenced her by placing the berry on her soft lips, tracing it back and forth.

Wanda wanted to resist it, that much I could see, but temptation got the best of her and I watched as her little pink tongue darted out from between her lips to touch the red fruit. I lifted my eyebrows at her and opened my mouth in a wide smile as her face turned speculative at the taste.

"Good?" Jamie asked and she began to nod her head slowly, still calculating the sensation.

"I think so?" she answered with a question and I laughed.

"Here, try it," I suggested, holding the berry up to her face again and Wanda hesitantly opened her mouth and bit the end off of the fruit. I watched in awe as she experienced the food for the first time.

Wanda smiled to herself and closed her eyes while she slowly chewed food. I chuckled as she peeked out at me through one eye and opened her mouth for another bite, which I gave to her, holding the strawberry up to her lips once more and she took a bigger bite the second time. Again, she chewed slowly but that time a big fat drop of the juice dripped down her bottom lip and trailed down her chin before it fell down somewhere. I didn't see where it went because I was so focussed on the trail of juice that had been left behind on her skin. I reached out with my left pointer finger and wiped off some of the juice before licking it off of my finger. Wanda had opened her eyes by that point, so I leaned in to her and before either of us really knew what was happening, I had licked and kissed the liquid off of her face.

"Ian!" she squealed out loud and I stopped what I was doing, suddenly pulled out of the bubble that I was previously in with her.

"Sorry," I whispered gently, watching as she shivered when my breath fanned across her face.

"Oh kay, I think that I will be going now," Jamie said in a bit of a sing-song voice, standing up and taking the half full basket of strawberries with him.

"See ya Jamie," I called to him without taking my eyes off of Wanda as he walked away.

"Later, O'Shea. And Wanda, of course," Wanda giggled and smiled up at him before looking back at me.

"You really didn't have to do that, you know. It would have sufficed it you had just wiped it off with your finger or something," she said, shrugging a bit.

"Are you saying that you didn't like it?" I countered that and Wanda shook her head.

"No, I'm saying that it might have been a little forward for out here in front of everyone," Wanda told me, leaning in closer to put her head on my shoulder.

"But Wanda, I want everyone to see how much that I love you; I don't want to have to hide that when we're out around other people. I'd show you off to the whole world if I could," I said honestly, resting my head down on top of hers as she nodded.

"I guess I shouldn't be so sensitive anymore then," she said, thinking out loud so I took my head off of her and bent down to look Wanda right in the eyes.

"You can be whatever you want to be, I'm just trying to tell you that it's okay to do things like that out here; nobody really cares."

"Except for Brandt and Maggie... and Lucina..." she started to list but I interrupted before Wanda could get too far.

"Right, _nobody_ really cares, just like I said."

Wanda rolled her pretty eyes at me, smiling all the same. "Ian," she groaned and I chuckled in response.

"Just believe it," I replied, smiling at her.

"I'm trying," she whispered honestly and looked so forlorn that I wanted to take her under my wing and never let her go. Obviously I couldn't exactly do that, but I hugged her tight to me just the same.

"I know you are," I kissed her forehead and stood up, holding my hand out for Wanda who took it right away to get up on her feet. "Let's go for a wander," I suggested and she laughed.

"A wander? To where?" she inquired and I shrugged, still holding her little hand in my big one.

"That's the point, my dear, we don't have a direction or a destination; it's all about the journey," I informed her and gently started to lead her away from the spot we were occupying.

Not three steps later, Wanda said "Incoming!" to me and I stopped short just in time to drop Wanda's hand and catch Freedom as he side swiped me and launched himself through the air.

"Woah, buddy! What are you doing?" I laughed, cradling him tight to my chest and then spinning around in circles one way and then the other way. "Were you trying to sneak up on me or something?"

"Maybe!" he replied through his squeals and laughter that rang through the air around us, making me laugh along with him just because the sound was so infectious. I eventually stopped and remained on the spot for a second or two to help him adjust to being still again so he wouldn't be so dizzy.

"I just wanted to say hi to you, Miss Wanda," Freedom said shyly to her and I turned us around so that they could talk directly to each other.

"Well hello to you too, Mister Freedoom. How are you today?" Wanda replied and I couldn't help but to notice that her entire face lit up when she was talking to the child. She always glowed when talking to me, or about something that she was really passionate about and I knew that Wanda had a soft spot in her heart for children. As the two conversed, I just trained my eyes on Wanda, winking at her when she noticed and then proceeded to blush.

"Freedom! Time for bed!" Lucina called out to him and he threw his head back, groaning at the same time.

"Do I have to, Mom? I'm having too much fun!" he complained, but knew that it was a useless argument all the same; heck, we all knew that there wasn't any point to disagreeing with what she said at all.

"Now Freedom!" she called again and I had no choice but to squat and let him down from my arms. I returned the tight hug that he gave to me and then watched as he repeated the gesture to Wanda, touching the bracelet that he had previously given her before he took off towards his mother who scooped him up before carrying him away.

"He's such a sweet kid," Wanda remarked as I stood up, shocked when she was all of a sudden right beside me and wrapped her arm around me; I was only too happy to repeat the gesture.

"He really is," I agreed, nodding off for us to continue our little 'no-destination' walk. "They both are."

"Mhmm. He reminds me of the kid Tyler that I met out there; they both were so happy despite everything going on around them. Granted, I'm not sure that children as young as them have much of an idea of the seriousness of everything going on around them, but still," Wanda commented and I totally agreed.

"I remember you telling me about Tyler, I think. He was the human kid that you met in the park, right?" I asked and she nodded, confirming my half guess.

"Can I run something by you?" she enquired, but continued before I even had the chance to respond. "I mean, you totally don't have to agree with anything. You can shoot it down if you'd like, not literally of course, but verbally, you know?"

"Wanda," I chuckled, pulling her closer to my body. "Just tell me what's on your mind, I promise not to interject until you are totally finished and everything. I really to hear what you're thinking about."

"Really?" she asked a bit sceptically and I internally shook my head at myself. I clearly wasn't doing my job right if she still doubted how I felt about her and how much I valued her opinions in my life.

"Really really," I teased her, pecking at her temple as we continued to walk slowly.

I remained silent from then on as Wanda literally spilled everything and anything that was on her brain and I was nearly struck dumbfounded by the amount of thinking she had been doing as of late and that she hadn't told me anything about it. The selfish part of me was hurt by that, but then I really listened to what she was saying and realized how hard it would have been for her to even fathom telling people her idea, no matter how wonderful it may sound to her. Just the fact that she had told me and Melanie about it was a huge accomplishment for Wanda; she was finally starting to open herself up and by the sounds of it she wanted to go to Jeb and the others too.

There were a lot of things that I could think of that could possibly go wrong with her little plan, and I had a lot of questions for her, but I figured that it would be best to just let her finish first before I talked.

"Well, what do you think?" Wanda asked after she'd talked herself hoarse but I was still trying to process everything that my brain had just absorbed and I wasn't quite sure where to start.

"You've certainly been busy thinking up all of these things, haven't you?" I joked and she shrugged, trying to pass it off as nothing, but it was a really big something that she had come up with.

"I think that you should do what you said and tell Jeb. I'm sure he'd have a say in everything, but at least let him know what you're considering here."

"But do you think that it's a good idea? I mean, there are a lot of things to mull over before it could even be started, and we'd certainly have to get a lot of people on board and all and..."

"I think that it's a wonderful plan," I told her definitely. "If you can pull this off, then it will be one hell of an accomplishment that you can throw on a resume for the job you'll have when we're out of here."

"Well, it wouldn't just be me, you know..."

"Wanda, seriously?" I raised my eyebrows at her and she giggled in response. "You're the mastermind brain behind the operation and the rest of us are just the puppets that you use to carry out the plan."

"I won't be able to take all of the credit you know..." she tried to pawn it off again, but I refused to let her.

"You are the one who came up with this, Wanda. Not me, not Melanie, not Jared, heck, not even Kyle could dream up something like this in his wildest dreams. You are the one who has to take full responsibility for this. I am more than willing to help you in any way that I can, but you've got it all up here; you just tell me what to do," I said, touching her head with my free hand for extra emphasis during my speech. Hopefully she got it.

"I really want to do this," Wanda said in a soft voice, gazing up at me with her big doe eyes again. "I'm just not sure that I can go to Jeb with it. What if he doesn't like it and puts a stop to everything before it even starts?"

"Then that's a chance that you have to take."

"We," she said decisively.

"We?" I asked, just to make sure that I knew what she was talking about.

"Yes, we. You and I are going to go to Jeb and the others together. If nothing else, I need you there for moral support," Wanda admitted and I loved her for it.

"Anything you want," I whispered, just happy with the knowledge that Wanda was making the effort to branch herself out more.

I was really excited by all of this; if her plan actually succeeded, then we would be out of there faster than a speeding bullet, which was something that I absolutely could not wait for. Fortunately, everyone in there was in the same boat, so I didn't see them rejecting her plan because the end result was too tempting. Of course, there were bound to be problems, and the first batch of humans sent out there would have to be practically suicidal, but I was sure that it would all work. It would have to; our livelihoods basically depended on this whether we knew it or not.

**If you're still out there, please review! :)**


	11. If I Die Young

**So a lot of things happen in a year and a bit! I graduated school, got a full –time job in my field (woot!), and my synchronized skating team placed first in all of Ontario and third in Canada! Exciting times! I have been writing so I decided to post an update. My New Year's resolution is to update regularly. Promise. **

**Thanks to piccolover22, IanOshea, jediasokaroxx, hanaharoo, Purple FireStarter5, RoseSharon, anmapamo, native-soul, ISleepWithSirens, nishikidojun, AmyOShea, Maylizzz, gretlcascade, londongirl2010, .Ian, Hannah3575, iluvdance622, twihardhannah, Wadjett, DisneyVampire, lovley ladybug and brooke123456 for your awesome reviews!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own The Host or any of its characters; they belong to the lovely Stephenie Meyer. I do however, own the plot.**

**Wanda POV**

Within five minutes of my little taste of the strawberry, I knew that something was wrong. Ian had fallen asleep once we had finished our wander of the caves and returned to our room, and I had tried to hide my symptoms from him for fear of it being something little and getting Ian all worked up about it for nothing. Upon our arrival back to the room, he had promptly crashed onto the bed, pulling me down with him and we turned in for the night; only something didn't feel right and I never did actually fall asleep.

After I had laid there for a few seconds it became obvious that I was having a reaction to the berry, as I could recall from Pet's past memories the effect it had on the body. My mouth tingled something bad, my arms were itchy and my throat felt tight, which I was sure was not a good thing at all. I knew that I should have never let Ian give me that bite of the strawberry, but a part of me was hopeful that with the change in souls that the allergy would have subsided. It was a very foolish thought, for I was paying the consequences of it after the fact.

Sitting up in bed, I thought back to what they did for Pet whenever she had an allergic reaction to the berries, and it took a very long time to find an answer; the body only had one reaction when she was a baby and that was back with the old medical system. Her parents had rushed the baby to the hospital where the doctor had injected her with a single needle and all of the symptoms disappeared. The words "antihistamine" and "epinephrine" floated around in my head, but I didn't know what they meant, or what good they would do for me in this new world of medicine.

I turned then and looked around at Ian, who hadn't budged even a little bit at the movement I was making by sitting up. I didn't want to wake Ian, but I had to do something about my symptoms, so I quietly slid out of bed, replacing the covers and shoved my feet into a pair of shoes right by the door. I tried to move the door aside, but it seemed to be stuck and I panicked a fair bit; in silence so Ian kept sleeping though. Evidently panicking was the wrong thing to do, as it became very hard to catch my breath after that; another sign that something was terribly wrong with me.

Eventually, I calmed myself down enough to gently and carefully slide the door out of the way, leaving just enough space for me to slip through. I didn't want to press my luck and have him waking up so I just left it where it was and began my long walk down to Doc's room. If he wasn't down there, then I would start rooting around for something to help me; I realized from the body's past experience that time was of the essence and I needed to find an antidote and quickly.

It took me much longer than necessary to get down to Doc's room, for I had to stop every so often and attempt to catch my breath. As I neared the space, I was nearly bent over gasping for air, though it felt like my throat was closing up on its own. I really needed to act fast if I was going to make it out of this situation alive. I finally entered the room and looked through my watery eyes to get my bearings.

After a quick survey of the space, I noticed that Doc was not there so I practically threw myself at the first set of cupboards that he had and immediately began rifling through the marked boxes for something to help me. Nobody in the caves had any allergies as far as we knew, so none of us had ever thought to bring back something that might help us with them.

Three cupboards and endless boxes later, I had gone through every single part of our little medical stash and had come up empty handed. I let out a desperate little cry as I tried to breathe in again, only this time it was like trying to breathe through a straw; it felt like my throat had just about completely closed right up. My tongue was swollen by that point, I realized too, for it was very hard to swallow anything at all.

I began to really panic then and clutched uselessly at my throat while trying to gasp for air. Things were really going downhill fast for me and I really regretted not waking Ian for help; he could have at least stayed with me while I went through it all. If I was going to die from lack of oxygen, I would have rather done it with him by my side, not alone in an empty room where I was unlikely to be discovered until the next morning.

As I started to see spots in my vision, I knew that I had a slim chance of making it out of the room alive. I fell to my knees before lying on the dirt floor looking up at the ceiling just as blackness came over me.

**Melanie POV**

"Jared, stop it!" I laughed as he practically pounced after me while I ran towards the door. "I will go and get them only if you quit being a maniac and come with me."

"Oh, I'll come with you all right," Jared replied with a snotty little smirk on his face and I held my right index finger up to him.

"Quit it, then. I'm not taking you out anywhere if you're spewing innuendo like that," I warned him and Jared sat back on his haunches, holding his hands up in the universal sign of surrender. "Awesome, then let's go quickly down to Doc's cave before anyone notices what we're up to."

Jared was in one of his moods and for once I had relented to help fix his little situation, or not so little, depending on how you looked at it. I usually didn't like to do it when there were so many others in the same vicinity, but I was letting my inhibitions go for one night and one night only. He seemed to have sensed that his window of opportunity was waning, for Jared leapt up and held the curtain aside for me to walk through first.

Once in the hallway, he turned around and scooped me up into his arms, cradling me close to his chest in a move that I was not expecting whatsoever. I nearly let out a scream at the unexpected action, but quickly caught myself before I woke up everyone in our corridor and ruined the vibe that we had going on.

Instead, I crossed my arms over top of my chest and let him carry me out into the main room where I began to squirm all over the place in hopes that he would put me down; I was a big girl and wasn't in to having Jared carry me around, no matter how nice it might feel. I was known for my independent nature and wasn't going to lose that part of my reputation in one night, even though there wasn't another person around to witness it.

"Mel, keep still, will you?" Jared asked, clearly struggling to keep a hold on me.

"I will once you let me down," I replied, raising an eyebrow at him, challenging Jared to test me at that moment.

He immediately let go of my legs so that they fell gracefully to the earth below, but did not release my upper body, opting to pull me closer to him instead. Jared's head began to duck down closer to mine, and because I knew him so well, I recognized the signs saying that he wanted to kiss me.

I decided to play with Jared for a little bit, pecking him on the lips and pushing against his chest so that I was free of his arms before he even got close enough to my face to initiate any sort of a kiss. I stood in front of him with a huge grin on my face and my hands on my hips while Jared just looked confused, so I had to laugh at him.

"Melanie Stryder, you little minx. You're really going to get it, you know," Jared taunted me as he took a few steps closer, his voice lower and more menacing compared to the last time that he had spoken to me. The result had made my body shiver in yearning for him, but I wanted to play around a little more.

"You gotta catch me first," I goaded him, taking a large step back; two of his steps were pretty much equal to one of mine, and since he was moving closer I wanted a bit of a head start for what I had planned next.

"What is that supposed to mean?" he asked, but I had already turned on the spot and taken off sprinting through the room towards the tunnel that lead to Doc's room.

I knew that it had taken him a few seconds to react, as I heard him swear before his heavy footfalls resonated through the large room and I could practically feel him hot on my tail. Jared was fast, but I had gotten my head start and also had the element of surprise on my side, so I quickly beat him to the tunnel, still running down it like a bat out of hell.

"You're going to be cornered down there, Mel, what are you going to do then?" Jared called out to me and I knew by the closeness of his voice that he had caught up to the tunnel as well. I hadn't thought about that part of my plan, but I decided that he couldn't do anything terrible to me. Instead, I smirked and laughed out loud as the thoughts of what he might do to me began to cross my mind.

I burst into the room and dashed around to the farthest cot from the door, knowing that I had mere seconds before Jared caught up. I took the not so heavy object, turned it completely on its side and crouched down behind it, listening closely as Jared entered the room and his footsteps came to a halt.

"Oh Melanieeeeeee! Come out, come out, wherever you are!" he sang out to me and I smiled like a loon, trying to keep as quiet as possible and drag this out for him; not that it wouldn't be obvious due to the cot on its side or anything.

"My, my, you were busy weren't you? Searching around like this, but you didn't have much time, did you?" Jared asked and I was confused.

"_What is he talking about?"_ I thought to myself, spinning around in the spot to look behind me at the cabinet there and noticed that it was open and all the boxes had been pulled out, some of their contents strewn all over the floor.

I continued to look around, no longer concerned about Jared and how he was still jeering at me, now looking for the source of all the disarray. Doc would not keep all the supplies like this; he liked everything to be orderly and even kept inventory of every single item in the room so that everything was accounted for.

As I continued to turn around, the next thing that I saw made me gasp in disbelief; I couldn't believe that I had missed seeing this on my way in. Granted, I was a little distracted by 200 pounds of male body that was chasing me down, but I was shocked that I had overlooked this huge detail.

"Jared, over here," I said to him, noticing that my voice was shaking as I fell to my knees, skidding across the floor to get closer to Wanda's body that was just lying there, unmoving.

"Well, that just gave away your spot, Mel. It wasn't much of a hunt for me," Jared said and I looked up to see his face peering over the side of the overturned cot, his expression quickly changing from one of playfulness to shock.

"What the fuck?" Jared swore again, shoving the useless cot to the side as I bent over Wanda, shushing him in the process to check and see if she was breathing. I pressed my ear to her lips and felt the faintest of breath coming in and out and I emitted a strangled cry.

"Turn the cot over and help me lift her up," I instructed Jared, the first aid training that I had done the summer before my life fell apart kicking in. "Then I need you to go and get Doc right away. And maybe Ian; he might want to be here for this."

"Is she breathing?" Jared asked, setting the cot back up and running over to scoop up Wanda's small body.

"Yes, but we need to hurry. I don't know what's wrong with her, but if it's anything bad..." I couldn't finish that sentence. I didn't want to dwell on the 'what if's', I just wanted to fix her. "Go get Doc now!"

Jared placed her gently on the cot and then tore out of the room at a speed that I had never seen him run at before. I was glad that he was in shape; the sleeping rooms weren't that far, but at the speed he was going he would be there in no time.

"Oh Wanda," I sighed, leaning over her body once more to make absolute sure that she was breathing. "What have you done to yourself?"

**Ian POV**

"Ian."

A deep voice was calling to me, but my body was telling me that it was not time to wake up, so I decided to ignore it as best as I could. If there was some shit going down, they would just have to deal with it themselves; the people around the caves were more than capable of handling things just fine without me.

"Ian... Ian. Ian you asshole, wake up," with that, the guy trying to rouse me from my slumber kicked the side of the mattress closest to me and I groaned in response.

"Get up, Ian. You have to come now. Wanda's in trouble," Jared told me quite frantically, but he really had no need to be like that at all.

"Wanda's right here. Go away," I mumbled; reaching out to the side where Wanda was lying to make sure she was indeed still there. Instead, my hand met a cold mattress. I turned my head and saw that her spot had been vacated and sat up immediately.

Jared looked like he'd seen a ghost as I looked at him. He kept glancing at the door and looked agitated about something.

"Where is she?" I asked, now fully awake.

"You have to come with me now, O'Shea. Melanie and I found her down in Doc's cave passed right out. I dunno what's wrong with her, but Doc already took off running for her so I thought that I would come and get you so..." without any further explanation from him, I had ripped the sheets off of me and tore out of my room down the hall, leaving him in the dust.

"Ian, wait up!" I could hear him calling to me, but I had pure adrenaline pumping through my veins, making me run faster and faster towards Wanda. I just needed to get there and assess the situation and above all, make sure that Wanda was okay.

"Ian, wait!" Jared's voice was barely a whisper to me as I tore through the fields in the main room and reached the other side of the room quite easily.

I could hear my heartbeat racing at a thousand beats a second, getting me closer and closer to whatever was happening to her down there. A part of me wished that I had allowed Jared to tell me what exactly was wrong with her because I was headed to her with no knowledge of the situation at all. I burst through the entrance to Doc's room and quickly got my bearings as I ground to a halt.

There was a figure lying on the cot; and by its small form I knew right away that it was Wanda; I bounded over and elbowed my way in between Doc, who was on one side of Wanda checking her vital sides, and Melanie on the other. Mel looked completely distraught and she clung to Wanda's hand, who just lay there unmoving with the exception of the very slow rise and fall of her chest.

"What's going on?" I panted, stroking Wanda's golden hair off of her face, my heart breaking because I didn't know what to do to help her.

"Well, she is breathing, but just barely. Her airway appears to be obstructed though by some swelling to her throat and tongue. I also noticed some red marks on her arms, indicating that she had been scratching at them something bad. They're here on her neck too, see?" Doc said, being the only calm one in the situation as he pointed out the obvious red marks on her poor body.

"What does it all mean though?" Mel asked as Jared finally made his way into the room.

"My best guess would be that she's having an anaphylactic reaction to something that she ate. I didn't know that souls could get allergic reactions like this and I don't think that we have much time to react," he replied soberly, looking around the room at the destruction that lay there.

"When I found her she was lying by an open cabinet like she had been looking for something," Mel said, her voice growing shaky by the second as I continued to stroke Wanda's hair, at a loss for words.

"Probably looking for something to stop her reaction, but the problem is that we don't have anything. I would have given it to her if we did, but nobody was prepared for something like this to happen," Doc said, giving me sad eyes and I looked away.

"Can we go on a raid and look for something?" Jared asked, standing on the other side of Melanie. "We could be back by..."

"There isn't that much time," Doc hissed. "She's lucky that she's alive as it is, but any longer and her air supply will be totally cut off and brain damage will set in."

I tuned them out and took a few seconds to clear my head and begin to think rationally. Back in school we all knew of kids that had allergic reactions and that we had to keep nut free environments for them and stuff. I remembered that those kids needed to carry Epi-pens with them, but since the souls had taken over they had virtually disappeared. Why this was happening to Wanda was totally beyond me; the body should have been immunized against it before anyone was inserted in the first place.

"Megan," I spoke out loud as I was still thinking and the others just turned to face me with confused expressions on their faces.

"What? What are you talking about?"Mel asked, the first of what was sure to be a flood of tears brimming her eyes.

"Megan had anaphylactic reactions to peanuts and tree nuts; she always carried an epi-pen on her. I would bet any money that she's still got it with her," I explained and Doc nodded.

"Then go," he instructed me. "And hurry."

Doc sure didn't have to tell me twice to hurry as I took off like a bullet, careening my way through the caves, leaping over plants and rocks on my way down to the storage cave where Megan and the others were. Brandt was sleeping during his post as guard and I didn't even have the heart to wake him up and tell him what an idiot he was for sleeping on the job, I just leapt over to him and found Megan's sleeping form in the little light from the lantern.

"Megan... wake up. Meg!" I whisper yelled at her while shaking Megan's body to wake her up for good. I wasn't taking any chances when Wanda's life was currently being held in my hands; if I failed at this then I lost her.

"What the hell, O'Shea," she mumbled, swatting at my hands to get me to stop. "Let me sleep."

"No, do you still carry your Epi-Pen?" I asked, visually searching the ground around her to make sure that it wasn't just lying around.

"What the hell do you need it for? Got a sneeze?" she asked, waking up more the more I kept shaking her. "And you can quit it, I'm up."

"Please Megan, I need it if you have one. I need it now!" I pretty much yelled at her, forgetting to be quiet for the sake of the other people sleeping in there.

"Where's the fire?" Matt asked groggily and Megan told him to shut up.

"Please, Wanda's having a reaction and I can't just leave her there and..."

"No," she interrupted me, rolling onto her side away from me, but I moved around so that I could look at her properly.

"Why not? What did she ever do to you?" I asked, wishing that Megan wasn't so damned stubborn; we didn't have much time at all.

"She brought the rain down on Earth and I hate her for that," Megan spit and I wanted to hit her; if she was a boy I probably would have too.

"First of all, Wanda did not 'bring the rain' as you put it. Those souls were here long before she even flew to this planet and Wanda is one of the few who hates what they did to us. She wants to help fix it and make our planet right again and she'll never get the chance to if she doesn't survive! She doesn't have much time, Megan!" I told her, getting angry that she wasn't just giving it up.

"Still, Ian. What would the world be with one less soul; it won't affect me too much," she spat and I clenched my teeth together, grinding my molars down.

"Sure it will. If Wanda dies, then I do too; that's our pact. I love her way to much to try and live on this planet without her. Wanda makes living worthwhile; I love her so much. So if she dies, it will affect you, unless you don't care for me at all, that is," I added for good measure and I could see Megan letting down some of her guard. Just a little more and I'll have her.

"Why do you need it so bad?" she asked, still not relenting.

"Wanda's having an allergic reaction to something that she ate and we don't have anything to counteract it; nothing except your Epi's if you still have them. Seriously, Megan. Wanda brings me so much light to my world of darkness and I don't know what I would do without her. I've already lost her once, and I do _not_ want to lose her again; not when I have the chance to save her," I pleaded as nicely as I could without full out begging, but I would if it came down to it.

"Megan quit being a bitch and give it to him," Matt muttered from his sleeping bag and she rolled her eyes.

"You owe me big time," Megan grumbled, throwing back her blanket and rising to her feet. "And just so you know, I'm doing this for you, Ian not that stupid girl. I could care less whether or not she lives or dies."

"I know. Thank you," I said as nice as possible as I followed her over to her bag and she unzipped the front pouch revealing a whole stash of the medicine.

"Is it all safe?" I asked, taking the one that she'd offered to me.

"Some of it's expired but it should work," she shrugged, yawning. "That one's a Twinrix so there are two doses just in case. And she's not getting any more so use it wisely."

"Thank you!" I called out to her as I raced back up the passageway back where I'd come from, hoping that I wasn't too late already. Megan liked to make things difficult when she wanted to and unfortunately for Wanda this was one of those times; I just needed to make it back there in time.

After a marathon sprint back to the hospital cave, I halted at Wanda's bedside where she was turning a horrifying shade of blue.

"Is she still breathing?" I asked, nearly out of breath myself, taking in her sickly image.

"Barely, did you get the epinephrine?" Doc asked and I nodded, already taking the injector out of the case and handing it to him. "Don't you think that I should administer it?"

"No," I replied, taking caps one and two off and looking up at him. "I need to do it."

Doc backed off then and Mel let go of Wanda's hand as I came close to her side, holding the injector in my fist and jabbing the needle into her thigh. I hated hurting Wanda with needles, but if it saved her life it was more than worth it. Nobody in the room spoke for a couple seconds, hoping that she'd make a miraculous recovery.

"How do I know if it was administered?" I asked, still trying to catch my breath, not taking my eyes off of Wanda for one second.

"Just wait ten seconds and then take it off; if the needle is out then it's done. If not, you can try again and press down harder," Doc instructed me and I nodded. Mel and Jared were still silent and seemed to be rooted to the spot.

I counted as slowly as I could, the adrenaline in my body making my heart beat faster and I needed to calm down. A part of me wished that I could somehow transfer some of my adrenaline to Wanda to help her more, but it was pretty much impossible. There was no sense losing my head over this until I absolutely needed to; praying that that time never came. After ten long seconds, I lifted the injector up and saw that the needle was out of the casing and I breathed a sigh of relief, but Wanda was still just lying there.

"Give it a second. Try rubbing the spot where the needle went in," Doc suggested as we all had our eyes glue to Wanda's chest. It was moving up and down, but not at a regular pattern like it should, making me very nervous. I started rubbing her leg in circles, praying that it worked.

"Is there something that needs to be done after this is given?" I asked Doc and he immediately got to work setting things up around me. I barely noticed as he stuck an oxygen mask over her face and began setting up an IV, let alone wonder where he had all this stuff hidden because Wanda's eyes were fluttering behind her eyelids.

"Wanda, honey can you hear me?" I asked, taking her hand with the one that didn't have the injector in it, not wanting to stab her any more than necessary.

Her eyes opened a crack and I noticed that she took a big breath of air, seeming to gulp it all in at once.

"Slow down there, Wanda. Too much air will just make you lightheaded," Doc advised her and Wanda nodded.

So many questions went through my mind but I didn't want to swarm Wanda with all of them, smothering her again. Wanda must have sense this, for she offered me a small smile and squeezed my hand, but I knew that her strength was zapped out of her; she looked weak just lying there on the bed.

"Wanda, I'm going to get you to sit upright, it will help to open your airways and you'll be able to breathe more," Doc said and Wanda nodded, gripping onto my hand to pull herself upright. Doc lifted the bed up at the same time and she leaned back, resting her head on the back of it.

"Your colour is coming back. I was so worried!" Mel cried out as she rushed forward to hug the smaller girl, but Wanda never let go of my hand.

"Mm okay," Wanda croaked and then coughed for a second. "Promise."

"Ian, make sure that you keep that needle handy; usually after the very first reaction another one will follow a little while later," Doc said and I nodded, keeping a firm grip on the cylinder.

Wanda shook her head and indicated with her hand that she wanted to write something down. Jared found a scrap piece of paper and a pen and Wanda set right to work.

"Pet's body has had one before," Melanie read out and Doc nodded, still fiddling with things around Wanda, coming to stand in front of her with another needle for her IV.

I moved aside so that he could inject it but still held onto Wanda's hand; I knew how she felt about needles and she closed her eyes so that she wouldn't have to watch it go in her skin.

"Wanda, when was the last time that the body had a reaction?" Doc asked and Wanda began scribbling again.

"When she was a small child. Before the souls came," Mel read out. "The body hasn't had one since then."

"Do you know what caused it?" Doc asked and Wanda nodded, removing the oxygen mask from her mouth, but keeping it on her nose before I could protest, shooting me a look to keep quiet about it.

"The strawberries," Wands whispered and I immediately felt guilty.

"I'm sorry," I said, and had four sets of eyes snap to my face immediately, but I could only look into Wanda's silver ones.

"It's not your fault," Wanda said at the same time that Mel said "What are you sorry for?"

"We were in the fields and I made her try a strawberry since she claimed to have never tasted one before," I explained, my gut clenching knowing that I had caused all of this. Wanda nearly died because of my stupidity.

"It's not your fault," Wanda said in a low voice but I shook my head, disgusted. "No, listen to me. I didn't know that this would happen either or I wouldn't have let you do it."

"But you just wrote down that the body has had a reaction before..." I protested and Mel just glared at me.

"It took me awhile to even think of what was happening to me; Pet's body was barely three years old when the first reaction happened. That was a long time ago and it's not like she reflected on it every single day to make the memories fresh. All she knew was that she'd never had a strawberry before but didn't know why that was. If I had known, I wouldn't have bitten it," Wanda said, trying to take the blame on herself, but it was my entire fault and nothing was changing my mind about that.

"Doesn't your throat hurt?" I asked her, trying to make Wanda see that she needed to rest after an ordeal like that.

"It's a little tight, but nothing too horrible. And I promise that I'll let you know if I start feeling bad again," she told me and I nodded.

"You'd better," I told her, looking right into her eyes and trying to make her see just how scared I was that I'd lost her. It must have worked, for she bowed her head down a little bit and back up, keeping her eyes on me the whole entire time.

"Okay, well since you seem to be doing better we're going to head back to bed. Come and get me if anything changes, and I'm serious about it. Even if I'm sleeping, you have my permission to bang down the door and wake me up," Mel said and Jared nodded.

"Ditto," was all he managed to say before yawning, taking Melanie's hand and pretty much dragging her from the small room.

"I'm staying," I told Doc and he shrugged.

"I figured as much," he replied. "You can let go of the Twinject too, Ian. Just put it to the side or something; you're making me nervous that you're going to poke you finger with it or something and I don't have anything to deal with a gangrene finger."

The thought of that happening to my finger was incentive enough to put the device down, making sure that it was far enough away that it wasn't going to roll off and onto the floor for someone to step on either. That would be nasty business to get a dose of that without actually needing any adrenaline.

"Care to tell me what the hell that was about?" I asked quietly once Doc was busying himself with something in the far corner of the small cave.

"Well my body obviously had a reaction to the strawberries and..."

"No, I meant why you felt the need to sneak off alone to pretty much die instead of waking me up and asking for help," I was more specific that time and Wanda bowed her head away from me, this time not looking up at me at all.

"I just thought that we would have something down here for me to take care of the issue," she started to explain and I almost didn't want her to finish.

"I didn't want to wake you and make you worry about anything when I could easily take something and make it back to bed before you'd even rolled over. I finally knew what was happening to me once I was like halfway down here so it was just a matter of finding the medication, that was all," she said sadly.

"Do you think it would have been better if you had just come down here alone and died because neither Mel nor Jared had come down here in the middle of the night? Nobody is usually up and about at this time of night; everyone's sleeping!" my voice was rising and I needed to get myself in check; I hated yelling at Wanda and I'd probably end up taking it out on Kyle's nose later for something to do.

"Don't be mad at me, Ian. I didn't think that far ahead, I was only thinking about fixing my problem and getting back to you. I wasn't planning on dying down here," Wanda added gently.

"I'm furious with you because you scared the hell out of me, Wanda," I told her, using a swear word with her and she only recoiled a little bit. "If Mel and Jared hadn't found you then you would have left me. Again. Last time you left me in the middle of the night like that we had to find you another body. You owe your life to them; and Megan," I told her and saw her little brow furrow at the last name that I mentioned.

"Why Megan?" she asked quietly and I sighed.

"It was her Twinject that we used; I had to beg her to let me have it too, she was all for letting you die," I explained, trying to make it sound as nice as possible. "She isn't too fond of you yet, guess that means that they won't be coming out of there any time soon."

"Well I'm indebted to her for that; she kept me alive. And you; I love you so much Ian," Wanda said, finally looking at me with some unshed tears in her eyes.

"If you love me so much then why do you keep leaving me? Am I going to have to chain myself to you when we go to sleep to make sure that you don't up and leave again?" I asked, threatening her a little bit. "Because I will if I have to and I'm being totally serious about it."

"No, you won't have to. I promise to wake you up if something ever arises again. It was stupid and selfish of me to try and do this all alone when clearly I needed more help than just Doc could give me," Wanda apologized, squeezing my hand again.

"I love you," I told her slowly, emphasizing each word carefully. "But if you ever do that to me again, I will personally follow you around day in and day out until you get it through your head that you are not leaving me, got it?"

Wanda nodded and I stood up to press a kiss to her forehead before wrapping my arms tightly around her, crushing her small frame to my chest. It was a giant relief to feel her warm, alive body in my arms; her heart beating quickly and blood pumping through those veins properly. I let go of her for just a second once I remembered that she still had the oxygen mask on her nose and noticed that she had regained a considerable amount of colour back in her skin, but her lips were still a tinge bluish.

"Um, Ian?" Wanda asked and I nodded, wrapping my hand around the back of her neck and feeling for her scar before running my fingers over it, watching as she visibly relaxed.

"Yes Wanda," I replied, wanting to hold her close and never let go, but I repressed the urge for the time being.

"Remember how I told you that I'd let you know if I started to feel bad again?" she said and I immediately jumped back, worried that I was restricting her air space or something.

"Yes," I replied warily and watched as Wanda touched her throat.

"It feels tighter again," Wanda said, looking up at me with her doe eyes.

"Doc?" I called out to him and he rushed over, asking her more questions and visually checking her out again.

"I don't think that we'll need to administer the second dose, but Ian you should stay off of her chest if at all possible," Doc advised me and I nodded right away. "I'm going to continue to monitor her for the next couple of hours just to be on the safe side and then I want you to take her back to your room to rest. No grumbling, missy."

Wanda had started to mumble something about being under 'room arrest' if she went back there and I smiled. I would gladly keep her under house arrest if it meant spending more time with Wanda and making sure that she was safe. A part of me was still mad at her for pulling this one over on me, but I was glad that she was okay. I was going to keep that needle close by my side though for the next little while. Just in case.

**A/N: I have never had an anaphylactic reaction, nor have I ever been around anyone who has had one. I am trained to administer both the Epi-Pen and Twinject auto injectors since I work with small children who carry them, but all the "facts" for lack of a better term that I wrote of above are taken from the internet and what I've learned in First Aid and Epi-Pen Administration courses. And what my Mom has told me about the one time that she had to take someone to the hospital who was having a reaction and didn't have an Epi-Pen.**

**Forgive me if I'm wrong. It is after all a work of fiction!**


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